Bram Stoker - Dracula's Guest: And Other Weird Stories

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October 2012

DRACULA'S GUEST

%And Other Weird Stories

BRAM STOKER

author of

'thb mystery of the sea,' 'the jewel of

'the lady of the shroud,' etc., btc.

SECOND IMPRESSION

LONDON

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, Ltd.

Broadway House, 68-74 Carter Lank, E.C.

First Published in IQI4

To
My Son

The last Novel by the Author of DRACULA:

THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM

By BRAM STOKER

Crown Svo,, 324 pp. Cloth gilt, with six Coloured Illustrations
after Designs by Pamela Cohnan Smitli. 6s.

" Mr. Stoker tells his story well." — Daily Mail.

" Let no one read this book before going to hed." — Daily Telegraph.

"In matters of mystery, imagination, and horror, Mr. Stoker's latest
romance can give points to any of its predecessors," — Court Journal.

"An excellent idea is that on which ' The Lair of the While Worm'
is founded, and an excellent story has Mr. Bram Stoker made of it."

—The World.

" In his latest novel Mr. Bram Stoker again shows himself to be the
possessor of a vivid imagination, of a subtle power of analysis and of a
supreme faculty for telling, in a circumstantial way, a blood-curdling
yarn." — The Scotsman.

The following books are also by Bram Stoker :■—

Under the Sunset. The Man.

The Snake's Pass. Personal Reminiscences of Henry

The Shoulder of Shasta. Irving.

The Watter's Mou'. Lady Athlyne.

Miss Betty. Snow-Bound.

The Mystery of the Sea. The Lady of the Shroud.

The Jewel of Seven Stars. Famous Imposters.

Of all Libraries and Booksellers,

PREFACE

A few months before the lamented death of
my husband — I might say even as the shadow of
death was over him — he planned three series of
short stories for publication, and the present
volume is one of them. To his original list of
stories in this book, I have added an hitherto
unpublished episode from "Dracula." It was
originally excised owing to the length of the
book, and may prove of interest to the many
readers of what is considered my husband's most
remarkable work. The other stories have al-
ready been published in English and American
periodicals. Had my husband lived longer, he
might have seen fit to revise this work, which is
mainly from the earlier years of his strenuous life.
But, as fate has entrusted to me the issuing of it,
I consider it fitting and proper to let it go forth
practically as it was left by him.

FLORENCE A. L. BRAM STOKER.

26, St George's Square,

London, S.W.

CONTENTS

The Judge's House . . ...

■ 19

The Squaw

• 45

The Secret of the Growing Gold

• 63

The Coming of Abel Behenna

■ 95

The Burial of the Rats

. 131

A Dream of Red Hands

• 157

171

DRACULA'S GUEST

DRACULA'S GUEST

When we started for our drive the sun was shining'
brightly on Munich, and the air was full of the
joyousness of early summer. Just as we were
about to depart, Herr Delbriick (the matt-re d'hdtel of
the Quatre Saisons, where I was staying) came down,
bareheaded, to the carriage and, after wishing- me a
pleasant drive, said to the coachman, still holding his
hand on the handle of the carriage door :

" Remember you are back by nightfall. The sky
looks bright but there is a shiver in the north wind
that says there may be a sudden storm. But I am
sure you will not be late." Here he smiled, and
added, "for you know what night it is."

Johann answered with an emphatic, " Ja, mein
Herr," and, touching his hat, drove off quickly.
When we had cleared the town, I said, after
signalling to him to stop :

" Tell me, Johann, what is to-night ? "

He crossed himself, as he answered laconically :
" Walpurgis nacht." Then he took out his watch, a
great, old-fashioned German silver thing as big as a
turnip, and looked at it, with his eyebrows gathered
together and a little impatient shrug of his shoulders.

2 DRACULA'S GUEST

I realised that this was his way of respectfully
protesting against the unnecessary delay, and sank
back in the carriage, merely motioning him to proceed.
He started off rapidly, as if to make up for lost time.
Every now and then the horses seemed to throw up
their heads and sniffed the air suspiciously. On such
occasions I often looked round in alarm. The road
was pretty bleak, for we were traversing a sort of high,
wind-swept plateau. As we drove, I saw a road that
looked but little used, and which seemed to dip
through a little, winding valley. It looked so
inviting that, even at the risk of offending him, I
called Johann to stop — and when he had pulled up, I
told him I would like to drive down that road. He
made all sorts of excuses, and frequently crossed
himself as he spoke. This somewhat piqued my
curiosity, so I asked him various questions. He
answered fencingly, and repeatedly looked at his
watch in protest Finally I said :

"Well, Johann, I want to go down this road. I
shall not ask you to come unless you like ; but tell
me why you do not like to go, that is all I ask."
For answer he seemed to throw himself off the box,
so quickly did he reach the ground. Then he
stretched out his hands appealingly to me, and
implored me not to go. There was just enough
of English mixed with the German for me to
understand the drift of his talk. He seemed always
just about to tell me something— the vary idea of
which evidently frightened him ; but each time he
pulled himself up, saying, as he crossed himself:
" Walpurgis-Nacht ! "

I tried to argue with him, but it was difficult to

DRACULA'S GUEST 3

argue with a man when I did not know his language.
The advantage certainly rested with him, for although
he began to speak in English, of a very crude and
broken kind, he always got excited and broke into
his native tongue — and every time he did so, he
looked at his watch. Then the horses became
restless and sniffed the air. At this he grew very
pale, and, looking around in a frightened way, he
suddenly jumped forward, took them by the bridles
and led them on some twenty feet. I followed, and
asked why he had done this. For answer he crossed
himself, pointed to the spot we had left and drew his
carriage in the direction of the other road, indicating
a cross, and said, first in German, then in English :
" Buried him — him what killed themselves."

I remembered the old custom of burying suicides
at cross-roads : " Ah ! I see, a suicide. How
interesting ! " But for the life of me I could not
make out why the horses were frightened.

Whilst we were talking, we heard a sort of sound
between a yelp and a bark. It was far away ;
but the horses got very restless, and it took Johann
all his time to quiet them. He was pale, and said :
" It sounds like a. wolf — but yet there are no wolves
here now."

" No ? " I said, questioning him ; " isn't it long
since the wolves were so near the city ? "

" Long, long," he answered, " in the spring and
summer ; but with the snow the wolves have been
here not so long."

Whilst he was petting the horses and trying to
quiet them, dark clouds drifted rapidly across the sky.
The sunshine passed away, and a breath of cold wind

4 DRACULA'S GUEST

seemed to drift past us. It was only a breath, how-
ever, and more in the nature of a warning than a fact,
for the sun came out brightly again. Johann looked
under his lifted hand at the horizon and said :

" The storm of snow, he comes before long time."
Then he looked at his watch again, and, straightway
holding his reins firmly — for the horses were still
pawing the ground restlessly and shaking their heads
— he climbed to his box as though the time had come
for proceeding on our journey.

I felt a little obstinate and did not at once get into
the carriage.

"Tell me," I said, "about this place where the road
leads," and I pointed down.

Again he crossed himself and mumbled a prayer,
before he answered : " It is unholy."

" What is unholy ? " I enquired.

"The village."

" Then there is a village ? "

"No, no. No one lives there hundreds of years."
My curiosity was piqued : " But you said there was a
village."

" There was."

" Where is it now? "

Whereupon he burst out into a long story in German
and English, so mixed up that I could not quite
understand exactly what he said, but roughly I
gathered that long ago, hundreds of years, men had
died there and been buried in their graves ; and
sounds were heard under the clay, and when the
graves were opened, men and women were found rosy
with life, and their mouths red with blood. And so,
in haste to save their lives (aye, and their souls! —

DRACULA'S GUEST 5

and here he crossed himself) those who were left fled
away to other places, where the living lived, and the
dead were dead and not — not something. He was
evidently afraid to speak the last words. As he pro-
ceeded with his narration, he grew more and more
excited. It seemed as if his imagination had got
hold of him, and he ended in a perfect paroxysm of
fear — white-faced, perspiring, trembling and looking
round him, as if expecting that some dreadful
presence would manifest itself there in the bright sun-
shine on the open plain. Finally, in an agony of
desperation, he cried :

"Walpurgis nacht!" and pointed to the carriage
for me to get in. All my English blood rose at this,
and, standing back, I said :

"You are afraid, Johann — you are afraid. Go
home ; I shall return alone ; the walk will do me
good." The carriage door was open. I took from
the seat my oak walking-stick — which I always carry
on my holiday excursions — and closed the door, point-
ing back to Munich, and said, " Go home, Johann —
Walpurgis-nacht doesn't concern Englishmen."

The horses were now more restive than ever, and
Johann was trying to hold them in, while excitedly
imploring me not to do anything so foolish. I pitied
the poor fellow, he was so deeply in earnest ; but all
the same I could not help laughing. His English
was quite gone now. In his anxiety he had forgotten
that his only means of making me understand was
to talk my language, so he jabbered away in his
native German. It began to be a little tedious.
After giving the direction, " Home ! " I turned to go
down the cross-road into the valley.

6 DRACULA'S GUEST

With a despairing gesture, Johann turned his
horses towards Munich. I leaned on my stick and
looked after him. He went slowly along the road for
a while : then there came over the crest of the hill a
man tall and thin. I could see so much in the
distance. When he drew near the horses, they began
to jump and kick about, then to scream with terror.
Johann could not hold them in ; they bolted down
the road, running away madly. I watched them out
of sight, then looked for the stranger, but I found
that he, too, was gone.

, With a light heart I turned down the side road
through the deepening valley to which Johann had
objected. There was not the slightest reason, that I
could see, for his objection ; and I daresay I tramped
for a couple of hours without thinking of time or
distance, and certainly without seeing a person or a
house. So far as the place was concerned, it was de-
solation itself. But I did not notice this particularly
till, on turning a bend in the road, I came upon a
scattered fringe of wood ; then I recognised that I
had been impressed unconsciously by the desolation
of the region through which I had passed.

I sat down to rest myself, and began to look
around. It struck me that it was considerably colder
than it had been at the commencement of my walk — ■
a sort of sighing sound seemed to be around me, with,
now and then, high overhead, a sort of muffled roar.
Looking upwards I noticed that great thick clouds
were drifting rapidly across the sky from North to
South at a great height. There were signs of
coming storm in some lofty stratum of the air. I
was a little chilly, and, thinking that it was the

DRACULA'S GUEST 7

sitting still after the exercise of walking, I resumed
my journey.

The ground I passed over was now much more
picturesque. There were no striking objects that the
eye might single out ; but in all there was a charm of
beauty. I took little heed of time and it was only
when the deepening twilight forced itself upon me
that I began to think of how I should find my way
home. The brightness of the day had gone. The
air was cold, and the drifting of clouds high overhead
was more marked. They were accompanied by a sort
of far-away rushing sound, through which seemed to
come at intervals that mysterious cry which the driver
had said came from a wolf. For a while I hesitated.
I had said I would see the deserted village, so on I
went, and presently came on a wide stretch of open
country, shut in by hills all around. Their sides were
covered with trees which spread down to the plain,
dotting, in clumps, the gentler slopes and hollows
which showed here and there. I followed with my
eye the winding of the road, and saw that it curved
close to one of the densest of these clumps and was
lost behind it.

As I looked there came a cold shiver in the air,
and the snow began to fall. I thought of the miles
and miles of bleak country I had passed, and then
hurried on to seek the shelter of the wood in front.
Darker and darker grew the sky, and faster and
heavier fell the snow, till the earth before and around
me was a glistening white carpet the further edge of
which was lost in misty vagueness. The road was
here but crude, and when on the level its boundaries
were not so marked, as when it passed through the

8 DRACULA'S GUEST

cuttings ; and in a little while I found that I must
have strayed from it, for I missed underfoot the hard
surface, and my feet sank deeper in the grass and
moss, Then the wind grew stronger and blew with
ever increasing force, till I was fain to run before it
The air became icy-cold, and in spite of my exercise
I began to suffer. The snow was now falling so
thickly and whirling around me in such rapid eddies
that I could hardly keep my eyes open. Every now
and then the heavens were torn asunder by vivid
lightning, and in the flashes I could see ahead of me
a great mass of trees, chiefly yew and cypress all
heavily coated with snow.

I was soon amongst the shelter of the trees, and
there, in comparative silence, I could hear the rush of
the wind high overhead. Presently the blackness of
the storm had become merged -in the darkness of the
night. By-and-by the storm seemed to be passing
away : it now only came in fierce puffs or blasts.
At such moments the weird sound of the wolf
appeared to be echoed by many similar sounds
around me.

Now and again, through the black mass of drifting
cloud, came a straggling ray of moonlight, which lit
up the expanse, and showed me that I was at the
edge of a dense mass of cypress and yew trees. As
the snow had ceased to fall, I walked out from the
shelter and began to investigate more closely. It
appeared to me that, amongst so many old founda-
tions as I had passed, there might be still standing a
house in which, though in ruins, I could find some
sort of shelter for a while. As I skirted the edge of
the copse, I found that a low wall encircled it, and

DRACULA'S GUEST 9

following this I presently found an opening. Here
the cypresses formed an alley leading up to a square
mass of some kind of building. Just as I caught
sight of this, however, the drifting clouds obscured
the moon, and I passed up the path in darkness. The
wind must have grown colder, for I felt myself shiver
as I walked ; but there was hope of shelter, and I
groped my way blindly on.

I stopped, for there was a sudden stillness. The
storm had passed ; and, perhaps in sympathy with
nature's silence, my heart seemed to cease to beat.
But this was only momentarily ;. for suddenly the
moonlight broke through the clouds, showing me that
I was in a graveyard, and that the square object
before me was a great massive tomb of marble, as
white as the snow that lay on and all around it.
With the moonlight there came a fierce sigh of the
storm, which appeared to resume its course with a
long, low howl, as of many dogs or wolves. I was
awed and shocked, and felt the cold perceptibly grow
upon me till it seemed to grip me by the heart. Then
while the flood of moonlight still fell on the marble
tomb, the storm gave further evidence of renewing, as
though it was returning on its track. Impelled by
some sort of fascination, I approached the sepulchre
to see what it was, and why such a thing stood alone
in such a place. I walked around it, and read, over
the Doric door, in German —

COUNTERS DOLINGEN OF GRATZ

IN STYRIA

SOUGHT AND FOUND DEATH,

l8ot.

io DRACULA'S GUEST

On the top of the tomb, seemingly driven through
the solid marble — for the structure was composed of
a few vast blocks of stone — was a great iron spike
or stake. On going to the back I saw, graven in
great Russian letters :

" The dead travel fast."

There was something so weird and uncanny about
the whole thing that it gave me a turn and made me
feel quite faint. I began to wish, for the first time,
that I had taken Johann's advice. Here a thought
struck me, which came under almost mysterious
circumstances and with a terrible shock. This was
Walpurgis Night !

Walpurgis Night, when, according to the belief of
millions of people, the devil was abroad — when the
graves were opened and the dead came forth and
walked. When all evil things of earth and air and
water held revel. This very place the driver had
specially shunned. This was the depopulated, village
of centuries ago. This was where the suicide lay ;
and this was the place where I was alone — unmanned,
shivering with cold in a shroud of snow with a wild
storm gathering again upon me ! It took all my
philosophy, all the religion I had been taught, ail my
courage, not to collapse in a paroxysm of fright.

And now a perfect tornado burst upon me. The
ground shook as though thousands of horses thundered
across it ; and this time the storm bore on its icy wings,
not snow, but great hailstones which drove with such
violence that they might have come from the thongs
of Balearic slingers — hailstones that beat down leaf
and branch and made the shelter of the cypresses of

DRACULA'S GUEST n

no more avail than though their stems were standing-
corn. At the first I had rushed to the nearest tree ;
but I was soon fain to leave it and seek the only spot
that seemed to afford refuge, the deep Doric doorway
of the marble tomb. There, crouching against the
massive bronze-door, I gained a certain amount of
protection from the beating of the hail-stones, for now
they only drove against me as they ricochetted from
the ground and the side of the marble.

As I leaned against the door, it moved slightly and
opened inwards. The shelter of even a tomb was
welcome in that pitiless tempest,- and I was about
to enter it when there came a flash of forked -lightning
that lit up the whole expanse of the heavens. In the
instant, as I am a living man, I saw, as my eyes were
turned into the darkness of the tomb, a beautiful
woman, with rounded cheeks and red lips, seemingly
sleeping on a bier. As the thunder broke overhead,
I was grasped as by the hand of a giant and hurled
out into the storm. The whole thing was so sudden
that, before I could realize the shock, moral as well as
physical, I found the hailstones beating me down. At
the same time I had a strange, dominating feeling
that I was not alone. I looked towards the tomb.
Just then there came another blinding flash, which
seemed to strike the iron stake that surmounted the
tomb and to pour through to the earth, blasting and
crumbling the marble, as in a burst of flame. The
dead woman rose for a moment of agony, while she
was lapped in the flame, and her bitter scream of pain
was drowned in the thundercrash. The last thing I
heard was this mingling of dreadful sound, as again
I was seized in the giant-grasp and dragged away,

12 DRACULA'S GUEST

while the hailstones beat on me, and the air around
seemed reverberant with the howling of wolves. The
last sight that I remembered was a vague, white,
moving mass, as if all the graves around me had sent
out the phantoms of their sheeted-dead, and that they
were closing in on me through the white cloudiness of
the driving hail.

******

Gradually there came a sort of vague beginning of
consciousness ; then a sense of weariness that was
dreadful. For a time I remembered nothing ; but
slowly my senses returned. My feet seemed positively
racked with pain, yet I could not move them. They
seemed to be numbed. There was an icy feeling at
the back of my neck and all down my spine, and my
ears, like my feet, were dead, yet in torment ; but
there was in my breast a sense of warmth which was,
by comparison, delicious. It was as a nightmare — a
physical nightmare, if one may use such an expression ;
for some heavy weight on my chest made it difficult
for me to breathe.

This period of semi-lethargy seemed to remain a
long time, and as it faded away I must have slept or
swooned. Then came a sort of loathing, like the first
stage of sea-sickness, and a wild desire to be free from
something — I knew not what, A vast stillness
enveloped me, as though all the world were asleep or
dead — only broken by the low panting as of some
animal close to me. I felt a warm rasping at my
throat, then came a consciousness of the awful truth,
which chilled me to the heart and sent the blood
surging up through my brain. Some great animal
was lying on me and now licking my throat. I feared

DRACULA'S GUEST 13

to stir, for some instinct of prudence bade me lie still ;
but the brute seemed to realize that there was now
some change in me, for it raised its head. Through
my eyelashes I saw above me the two great flaming
eyes of a gigantic wolf. Its sharp white teeth
gleamed in the gaping red mouth, and I could feel its
hot breath fierce and acrid upon me.

For another spell of time I remembered no more.
Then I became conscious of a low growl, followed by
a yelp, renewed again and again. Then, seemingly
very far away, I heard a " Holloa ! holloa ! " as of
many voices calling in unison. Cautiously I raised
my head and looked in the direction whence the
sound came ; but the cemetery blocked my view. The
wolf still continued to yelp in a strange way, and a
red glare began to move round the grove of cypresses,
as though following the sound. As the voices drew
closer, the wolf yelped faster and louder. I feared to
make either sound or motion. Nearer came the red
glow, over the white pall which stretched into the
darkness around me. Then all at once from beyond
the trees there came at a trot a troop of horsemen
bearing torches. The wolf rose from my breast and
made for the cemetery. I saw one of the horsemen
(soldiers by their caps and their long military cloaks)
raise his carbine and take aim. A companion knocked
up his arm, and I heard the ball whizz over my head.
He had evidently taken my body for that of the wolf.
Another sighted the animal as it slunk away, and a
shot followed. Then, at a gallop, the troop rode
forward — some towards me, others following the
wolf as it disappeared amongst the snow-clad
cypresses.

i4 MACULA'S GUEST

As they drew nearer I tried to move, but was
powerless, although I could see and hear all that
went on around me. Two or three of the soldiers
jumped from their horses and knelt beside me. One
of them raised my head, and placed his hand over
my heart.

" Good news, comrades ! " he cried. " His heart
still beats ! "

Then some brandy was poured down my throat ; it
put vigour into me, and I was able to open my eyes
fully and look around. Lights and shadows were
moving among the trees, and I heard men call to one
another. They drew together, uttering frightened
exclamations; and the lights flashed as the others
came pouriug out of the cemetery pell-mell, like men
possessed. When the further ones came close to us,
those who were around me asked them eagerly :

" Well, have you found him ? "

The reply rang out hurriedly :

" No ! no ! Come away quick — quick ! This is
no place to stay, and on this of all nights ! ;'

"What was it?" was the question, asked in all
manner of keys. The answer came variously and all
indefinitely as though the men were moved by some
common impulse to speak, yet were restrained by
some common fear from giving their thoughts.

"It it — indeed!" gibbered one, whose wits had

plainly given out for the moment.

"A wolf— and yet not a wolf!" another put in
shudderingly.

" No use trying for him without the sacred bullet,"
a third remarked in a more ordinary manner.

"Serve us right for coming out on this night!

DRACULA'S GUEST 15

Truly we have earned' our thousand marks ! " were the
ejaculations of a fourth.

"There was blood on the broken marble," another
said after a pause — " the lightning never brought that
there. And for him — is he safe ? Look at his throat !
See, comrades, the wolf has been lying on him and
keeping bis blood warm."

The officer looked at my throat and replied :

" He is all right ; the skin is not pierced. What
does it all mean? We should never have found him
but for the yelping of the wolf."

"What became of it?" asked the man who was
holding up my head, and who seemed the least panic-
stricken of the party, for his hands were steady and
without tremor. On his sleeve was the chevron of a
petty officer.

" It went to its home," answered the man, whose
long face was pallid, and who actually shook with
terror as he glanced around him fearfully. " There
are graves enough there in which it may lie. Come,
comrades — come quickly ! Let us leave this cursed
spot."

The officer raised me to a sitting posture, as he
uttered a word of cpmmand; then several men placed
me upon a horse. He sprang to the saddle behind
me, took me in his arms, gave the word to advance ;
and, turning our faces away from the cypresses, we
rode away in swift, military order.

As yet my tongue refused its office, and I was
perforce silent. I must have fallen asleep ; for the
next thing I remembered was finding myself standing
up, supported by a soldier on each side of me. It
was almost broad daylight, and to the north a red

i6 DRACULA'S GUEST

streak of sunlight was reflected, like a path of blood,
over the waste of snow. The officer was telling the
men to say nothing of what they had seen, except
that they found an English stranger, guarded by a
large dog.

" Dog ! that was no dog," cut in the man who had
exhibited such fear. " I think I know a wolf when
I see one."

The young officer answered calmly : " I said a dog."

" Dog ! " reiterated the other ironically. It was
evident that his courage was rising with the sun ; and,
pointing to me, he said, " Look at his throat. Is that
the work of a dog, master? "

Instinctively I raised my hand to my throat, and as
I touched it I cried out in pain. The men crowded
round to look, some stooping down from their saddles;
and again there came the calm voice of the young
officer :

"A dog, as I said. If aught else were said we
should only be laughed at."

I was then mounted behind a trooper, and we rode
on into the suburbs of Munich. Here we came across
a stray carriage, into which I was lifted, and it was
driven off to the Quatre Saisons— the young officer
accompanying me, whilst a trooper followed with his
horse, and the others rode off to their barracks.

When we arrived, Herr Delbruck rushed so quickly
down the steps to meet me, that it was apparent he
had been watching within. Taking me by both hands
he solicitously led me in. The officer saluted me
and was turning to withdraw, when I recognized his
purpose, and insisted that he should come to my
rooms. Over a glass of wine I warmly thanked him

DRACULA'S GUEST 17

and his brave comrades for saving me. He replied
simply that he was more than glad, and that Herr
Delbriick had at the first taken steps to make all the
searching party pleased ; at which ambiguous utter-
ance the maitre d'hotel smiled, while the officer
pleaded duty and withdrew.

" But Herr Delbriick," I enquired, " how and why
was it that the soldiers searched for me ? "

He shrugged his shoulders, as if in depreciation of
his own deed, as he replied :

" I was so fortunate as to obtain leave from the
commander of the regiment in which I served, to ask
for volunteers."

" But how did you know I was lost ? " I asked.

" The driver came hither with the remains of his
carriage, which had been upset when the horses ran
away."

" But surely you would not send a search-party of
soldiers merely on this account?"

" Oh, no ! " he answered ; " but even before the
coachman arrived, I had this telegram from the Boyar
whose guest you are," and he took from his pocket a
telegram which he handed to me, and I read :

Bistritz.
" Be careful of my guest — his safety is most precious to me.
Should aught happen to him, or if he be missed, spare nothing
to find him and ensure his safety. He is English and therefore
adventurous. There are often dangers from snow and wolves
and night. Lose not a moment if you suspect harm to him. I
answer your zeal with my fortune. — Dracula."

As I held the telegram in my hand, the room
seemed to whirl around rne ; and, if the attentive
maitre d'hotel had not caught me, I think I should

iS DRACULA'S GUEST

have fallen. There was something- so strange in all
this, something so weird and impossible to imagine,
that there grew on me a sense of my being in some
way the sport of opposite forces — the mere vague
idea of which seemed in a way to paralyse me. I
was certainly under some form of mysterious protec-
tion. From a distant country had come, in the very
nick of time, a message that took me out of the
danger of the snow-sleep and the jaws of the wolf.

THE JUDGE'S HOUSE

WHEN the time for his examination drew near
Malcolm Malcolmson made up his mind to go some-
where to read by himself. He feared the attractions
of the seaside, and also he feared completely rural
isolation, for of old he knew its charms, and so he
determined to find some unpretentious little town
where there would be nothing to distract him. He
refrained from asking suggestions from any of his
friends, for he argued that each would recommend
some place of which he had knowledge, and where he
had already acquaintances. As Malcolmson wished
to avoid friends he had no wish to encumber himself
with the attention of friends' friends, and so he deter-
mined to look out for a place for himself. He packed
a portmanteau with some clothes and all the books
he required, and then took ticket for the first name
on the local time-table 'which he did not know.

When at the end of three hours' journey he
alighted at Benchurch, he felt satisfied that he had
so far obliterated his tracks as to be sure of having a
peaceful opportunity of pursuing his studies. He
went straight to the one inn which the sleepy little
place contained, and put up for the night. Benchurch
was a market town, and once in three weeks was
crowded to excess, but for the remainder of the

20 THE JUDGE'S HOUSE

twenty-one days it was as attractive as a desert.
Malcolmson looked around the day after his arrival
to try to find quarters more isolated than even so
quiet an inn as "The Good Traveller" afforded.
There was only one place which took his fancy,
and it certainly satisfied his wildest ideas regarding
quiet ; in fact, quiet was not the proper word to apply
to it — desolation was the only term conveying any
suitable idea of its isolation. It was an old rambling,
heavy-built house of the Jacobean style, with heavy
gables and windows, unusually small, and set higher
than was customary in such houses, and was sur-
rounded with a high brick wall massively built.
Indeed, on examination, it looked more like a fortified
house than an ordinary dwelling. But all these things
pleased Malcolmson. "Here," he thought, "is the
very spot I have been looking for, and if I can only
get opportunity of using it I shall be happy." His
joy was increased when he realised beyond doubt that
it was not at present inhabited.

From the post-office he got the name of the agent,
who was rarely surprised at the application to rent a
part of the old house. Mr. Carnford.the local lawyer
and agent, was a genial old gentleman, and frankly
confessed his delight at anyone being willing to live
in the house.

" To tell you the truth," said he, " I should be only
too happy, on behalf of the owners, to let anyone
have the house rent free for a term of years if only to
accustom the people here to see it inhabited. It has
been so long empty that some kind of absurd
prejudice has grown up about it, and this can be best
put down by its occupation — if only," he added with

THE JUDGE'S HOUSE 21

a sly glance at Malcolmson, " by a scholar like your-
self, who wants its quiet for a time."

Malcolmson thought it needless to ask the agent
about the "absurd prejudice"; he knew he would
get more information, if he should require it, on that
subject from other quarters. He paid his three
months' rent, got a receipt, and the name of an old
woman who would probably undertake to "do" for
him, and came away with the keys in his pocket. He
then went to the landlady of the inn, who was a cheer-
ful and most kindly person, and asked her. advice as
to such stores and provisions as he'would be likely to
require. She threw up her hands in amazement when
he told her where he was going to settle himself.

"Not in the Judge's House!" she said, and grew
pale as she spoke. He explained the locality of the
house, saying that he did not know its name. When
he had finished she answered :

" Aye, sure enough — sure enough the very place !
It is the Judge's House sure enough." He asked her
to tell him about the place, why so called, and what
there was against it. She told him that it was so
called locally because it had been many years before
— how long she coul'd not say, as she was herself from
another part of the country, but she thought it must
have been a hundred years or more — the abode of a
judge who was held in great terror on account of his
harsh sentences and his hostility to prisoners at
Assizes. As to what there was against the house
itself she could not tell. She had often asked, but no
one could inform her ; but there was a general feeling
that there was something, and for her own part she
would not take all the money in Drinkwater's Bank

22 THE JUDGE'S HOUSE

and stay in the house an hour by herself. Then she
apologised to Malcolmsoti for her disturbing talk.

" It is too bad of me, sir, and you — and a young-
gentleman, too — if you will pardon me saying it,
going to live there all alone. If you were my boy —
and you'll excuse me for saying it — you wouldn't
sleep there a night, not if I had to go there myself
and pull the big alarm bell that's on the roof! " The
good creature was so manifestly in earnest, and was
so kindly in her intentions, that Malcomson, although
amused, was touched. He told her kindly how much
he appreciated her interest in him, and added :

"But, my dear Mrs. Witham, indeed you need not
be concerned about me! A man who is reading for
the Mathematical Tripos has too much to think of to
be disturbed by any of these mysterious 'somethings,'
and his work is of too exact and prosaic a kind to
allow of his having any corner in his mind for
mysteries of any kind. Harmonical Progression,
Permutations and Combinations, and Elliptic Func-
tions have sufficient mysteries for me ! " Mrs. Witham
kindly undertook to see after his commissions, and he
went himself to look for the old woman who had been
recommended to him. When he returned to the
judge's House with her, after an interval of a couple
of hours, he found Mrs. Witham herself waiting with
several men and boys ■ carrying parcels, and an
upholsterer's man with a bed in a cart, for she said,
though tables and chairs might be all very well, a bed
that hadn't been aired for mayhap fifty years was not
proper for young bones to lie on. She was evidently
curious to see the inside of the house ; and though
manifestly so afraid of the 'somethings' that at the

THE JUDGE'S HOUSE 23

slightest sound she clutched on to Malcomson, whom
she never left for a moment, went over the whole
place.

After his examination of the house, Malcomson
decided to take up his abode in the great dining-room,
which was big enough to serve for all his requirements ;
and Mrs. Witham, with the aid of the charwoman,
Mrs. Dempster, proceeded to arrange matters. When
the hampers were brought in and unpacked, Malcomson
saw that with much kind forethought she had sent
from her own kitchen sufficient provisions to last for a
few days. Before going she expressed all sorts ot
kind wishes ; and at the door turned and said :

" And perhaps, sir, as the room is big and draughty
it might be well to have one of those big screens put
round your bed at night— though, truth to tell, I
would die myself if I were to be so shut in with all
kinds of — of 'things,' that put their heads round the
sides, or over the top, and look on me ! " The image
which she had called up was too much for her nerves,
and she fled incontinently.

Mrs. Dempster sniffed in a superior manner as the
landlady disappeared, and remarked that for her own
part she wasn't afraid of all the bogies in the kingdom.

"I'll tell you what it is, sir," she said ; "bogies is
all kinds and sorts of things — except bogies! Rats
and mice, and beetles ; and creaky doors, and loose
slates, and broken panes, and stiff drawer handles, that
stay out when you pull them and then fall down in
the middle of the night. Look at the wainscot of the
room ! It is old — hundreds of years old ! Do you
think there's no rats and beetles there ! And do you
imagine, sir, that you wont see none of them ? Rats

24 THE JUDGE'S HOUSE

is bogies, I tell you, and bogies is rats ; and don't you
get to think anything else I "

" Mrs. Dempster," said Malcomson gravely, making
her a polite bow, " you know more than a Senior
Wrangler ! And let me say, that, as a mark of
esteem for your indubitable soundness of head and
heart, I shall, when I go, give you possession of this
house, and let you stay here by yourself for the last
two months of my tenancy, for four weeks will serve
my purpose."

"Thank you kindly, sir!" she answered, "but I
couldn't sleep away from home a night. I am in
Greenhow's Charity, and if I slept a night away from
my rooms I should lose all I have got to live on.
The rules is very strict ; and there's too many
watching for a vacancy for me to run any risks in the
matter. Only for that, sir, I'd gladly eome here and
attend on you altogether during your stay."

"My good woman," said Malcomson hastily, "I
have come here on purpose to obtain solitude ; and
believe me that I am grateful to the late Greenhow
for having so organised his admirable charity — what-
ever it is — that I am perforce denied the opportunity
of suffering from such a form of temptation ! Saint
Anthony himself could not be more rigid on the point ! "
' The old woman laughed harshly. "Ah, you young
gentlemen," she said, " you don't fear for naught ; and
belike you'll get all the solitude you want here." She
set to work with her cleaning J and by nightfall, when
Malcomson returned from his walk— he always had
one of his books to study as he walked— he found the
room swept and tidied, a fire burning in the old hearth,
the lamp lit, and the table spread for supper with Mrs.

THE JUDGE'S HOUSE 25

Witham's excellent fare. " This is comfort, indeed,"
he said, as he rubbed his hands.

When he had finished his supper, and lifted the tray
to the other end of the great oak dining- table, he got
out his books again, put fresh wood on the fire, trimmed
his lamp, and set himself down to a spell of real hard
work. He went on without pause till about eleven
o'clock, when he knocked off for a bit to fix his fire
and lamp, and to make himself a cup of tea. He had
always been a tea-drinker, and during his college life
had sat late at work and had taken tea late. The rest
was a great luxury to him, and he enjoyed it with a
sense of delicious, voluptuous ease. The renewed fire
leaped and sparkled, and threw quaint shadows through
the great old room ; and as he sipped his hot tea he
revelled in the sense of isolation from his kind. Then
it was that he began to notice for the first time what a
noise the rats were making.

"Surely," he thought, "they cannot have been at
it all the time I was reading. Had they been, I must
have noticed it ! " Presently, when the noise increased,
he satisfied himself that it was really new. It was
evident that at first the rats had been frightened at the
presence of a stranger, and the light of fire and lamp ;
but that as the time went on they had grown bolder
and were now disporting themselves as was their wont.

How busy they were! and hark to the strange noises !
Up and down behind the old wainscot, over the ceiling
and under the floor they raced, and gnawed, and
scratched ! Malcomson smiled to himself as he recalled
to mind the saying of Mrs. Dempster, " Bogies is rats,
and rats is bogies ! " The tea began to have its effect
of intellectual and nervous stimulus, he saw with joy

26 THE JUDGE'S HOUSE

another long spell of work to be done before the night
was past, and in the sense of security which it gave
him, he allowed himself the luxury of a good look
round the room. He took his lamp in one hand, and
went all around, wondering that so quaint and
beautiful an old house had been so long neglected.
The carving of the oak on the panels of the wainscot
was fine, and on and round the doors and windows it
was beautiful and of rare merit. There were some old
pictures on the walls, but they were coated so thick
with dust and dirt that he could not distinguish any
detail of them, though he held his lamp as high as he
could over his head. Here and there as he went round
he saw some crack or hole blocked for a moment by
the face of a rat with its bright eyes glittering in the
light, but in an instant it was gone, and a squeak and
a scamper followed. The thing that most struck him,
however, was the rope of the great alarm bell on the
roof, which hung down in a corner of the room on the
right-hand side of the fireplace. He pulled up close to
the hearth a great high-backed carved oak chair, and
sat down to his last cup of tea. When this was done
he made up the fire, and went back to his work, sitting
at the corner of the table, having the fire to his left
For a little while the rats disturbed him somewhat
with their perpetual scampering, but he got accustomed
to the noise as one does to the ticking of a clock or to
the roar of moving water ; and he became so immersed
in his work that everything in the world, except the
problem which he was trying to solve, passed away
from him.

He suddenly looked up, his problem was still un-
solved, and there was in the air that sense of the hour

THE JUDGE'S HOUSE 27

before the dawn, which is so dread to doubtful life.
The noise of the rats had ceased. Indeed it seemed
to him that it must have ceased but lately and that it
was the sudden cessation which had disturbed him.
The 6rehad fallen low, but still it threw out a deep
red glow. As he looked he started in spite of his
sang froid.

There on the great high-backed carved oak chair by
the right side of the fire-place sat an enormous rat,
steadily glaring at him with baleful eyes. He made a
motion to it as though to hunt it away, but it did not
stir. Then he made the motion of throwing some-
thing. Still it did not stir, but showed its great white
teeth angrily, and its cruel eyes shone in the lamplight
with an added vindictiveness.

Malcomson felt amazed, and seizing the poker from
the hearth ran at it to kill it. Before, however, he
could strike it, the rat, with a squeak that sounded like
the concentration of hate, jumped upon the floor, and,
running up the rope of the alarm bell, disappeared in
the darkness beyond the range of the green-shaded
lamp. Instantly, strange to say, the noisy scampering
of the rats in the wainscot began again.

By this time Malcomson's mind was quite off the
problem ; and as a shrill cock-crow outside told him of
the approach of morning, he went to bed and to sleep.

He slept so sound that he was not even waked by
Mrs. Dempster coming in to make up his room. It
was only when she had tidied up the place and got
his breakfast ready and tapped on the screen which
closed in his bed that he woke. He was a little tired
still after his night's hard work, but a strong cup of
tea soon freshened him up and, taking his book, he

28 THE JUDGE'S HOUSE

went out for his morning walk, bringing with him a
few sandwiches lest he should not care to return till
dinner time. He found a quiet walk between high
elms some way outside the town, and here he spent
the greater part of the day studying his Laplace. On
his return he looked in to see Mrs. Witham and to
thank her for her kindness. When she saw him coming
through the diamond -paned bay window of her
sanctum she came out to meet him and asked him in.
She looked at him searchingly and shook her head as
she said :

" You must not overdo it, sir. You are paler this
morning than you should be. Too late hours and
too hard work on the brain isn't good for any man!
But tell me, sir, how did you pass the night? Well,
I hope ? But, my heart ! sir, I was glad when Mrs.
Dempster told me this morning that you were all
right and sleeping sound when she went in."

"Oh, I was all right," he answered smiling, "the
'somethings' didn't worry me, as yet. Only the
rats; and they had a circus, I tell you, all over the
place. There was one wicked looking old devil that
sat up on my own chair by the fire, and wouldn't go
till I took the poker to him, and then he ran up the
rope of the alarm bell and got to somewhere up the
wall or the ceiling — I couldn't see where, it was so
dark."

" Mercy on us," said Mrs. Witham, "an old devil,
and sitting on a chair by the fireside ! Take care,
sir ! take care ! There's many a true word spoken in
jest."

" How do you mean ? Ton my word I don't
understand."

THE JUDGE'S HOUSE 29

"An old devil! The old dev.i, perhaps. There!
sir, you needn't laugh," for Malcomson had broken
into a hearty peal. " You young folks thinks it easy
to laugh at things that makes older ones shudder.
Never mind, sir! never mind! Please God, you'll
laugh all the time. It's what I wish you myself!"
and the good lady beamed all over in sym-
pathy with his enjoyment, her fears gone for a
moment.

"Oh, forgive me!" said Malcomson presently.
" Don't think me rude ; but the idea was too much
for me — that the old devil himself was on the chair
last night!" And at the thought he laughed again.
Then he went home to dinner.

This evening the scampering of the rats began
earlier ; indeed it had been going on before his
arrival, and only ceased whilst his presence by its
freshness disturbed them. After dinner he sat by the
fire for a while and had a smoke; and then, having
cleared his table, began to work as before. To-night
the rats disturbed him more than they had done on
the previous night. How they scampered up and
down and under and over ! How they squeaked,
and scratched, and gnawed ! How they, getting
bolder by degrees, came to the mouths of their holes
and to the chinks and cracks and crannies in the
wainscoting till their eyes shone like tiny lamps as
the firelight rose and fell. But to him, now doubtless
accustomed to them, their eyes were not wicked ;
only their playfulness touched him. Sometimes the
boldest of them made sallies out on the floor or along
the mouldings of the wainscot. Now and again as
they disturbed him Malcomson made a sound to

3o THE JUDGE'S HOUSE

frighten them, smiting the table with his hand or
giving a fierce " Hsh, hsh," so that they fled straight-
way to their holes.

And so the early part of the night wore on ; and
despite the noise Malcomson got more and more
immersed in his work.

All at once he stopped, as on the previous night,
being overcome by a sudden sense of silence. There
was not the faintest sound of gnaw, or scratch, or
squeak. The silence was as of the grave. He
remembered the odd occurrence of the previous
night, and instinctively he looked at the chair
standing close by the fireside. And then a very odd
sensation thrilled through him.

There, on the great old high-backed carved oak
chair beside the fireplace sat the same enormous rat,
steadily glaring at him with baleful eyes.

Instinctively he took the nearest thing to his hand,
a book of logarithms, and flung it at it. The book
was badly aimed and the rat did not stir, so again
the poker performance of the previous night was
repeated ; and again the rat, being closely pursued,
fled up the rope of the alarm bell. Strangely too,
the departure of this rat was instantly followed by
the renewal of the noise made by the general rat
community. On this occasion, as on the previous
one, Malcomson could not see at what part of the
room the rat disappeared, for the green shade of his
lamp left the upper part of the room in darkness, and
the fire had burned low.

On looking at his watch he found it was close on
midnight ; and, not sorry for the divertissement, he
made up his fire and made himself his nightly pot of

THE JUDGE'S HOUSE 31

tea. He had got through a good spell of work, and
thought himself entitled to a cigarette ; and so he sat
on the great carved oak chair before the fire and
enjoyed it. Whilst smoking he began to think that
he would like to know where the rat disappeared to,
for he had certain ideas for the morrow not entirely
disconnected with a rat-trap. Accordingly he lit
another lamp and placed it so that it would shine
well into the right-hand corner of the wall by the fire-
place. Then he got all the books he had with him, and
placed them hand)7 to throw at the vermin. Finally
he lifted the rope of the alarm bell and placed the
end of it on the table, fixing the' extreme end under
the lamp. As he handled it he could not help
noticing how pliable it was, especially for so strong
a rope, and one not in use. " You could hang a
man with it," be thought to himself. When his
preparations were made he looked around, and said
complacently :

" There now, my friend, I think we shall learn
something of you this time!" He began his work
again, and though as before somewhat disturbed at
first by the noise of the rats, soon lost himself in his
propositions and problems.

Again he was called to his immediate surroundings
suddenly. This time it might not have been the
sudden silence only which took his attention ; there
was a slight movement of the rope, and the lamp
moved. Without stirring, he looked to see if his
pile of books was within range, and then cast his eye
along the rope. As he looked he saw the great rat
drop from the rope on the oak armchair and sit
there glaring at him. He raised a book in his right

32 THE JUDGE'S HOUSE

hand, and taking careful aim, flung it at the rat.
The latter, with a quick movement, sprang aside
and dodged the missile. He then took another book,
and a third, and flung them one after another at the
rat, but each time unsuccessfully. At last, as he
stood with a book poised in his hand to throw, the rat
squeaked and seemed afraid. This made Malcomson
more than ever eager to strike, and the book flew
and struck the rat a resounding blow. It gave a
terrified squeak, and turning on his pursuer a look
of terrible malevolence, ran up the chair-back and
made a great jump to the rope of the alarm bell
and ran up it like lightning. The lamp rocked
under the sudden strain, but it was a heavy one
and did not topple over. Malcomson kept his eyes
on the rat, and saw it by the light of the second lamp
leap to a moulding of the wainscot and disappear
through a hole in one of the great pictures which
hung on the wall, obscured and invisible through
its coating of dirt and dust.

" I shall look up my friend's habitation in the
morning," said the student, as he went over to collect
his books. The third picture from the fireplace ;
I shall not forget." He picked up the books one
by one, commenting on them as he lifted them.
" Conic Sections he does not mind, nor Cycloidal
Oscillations, nor the Principia, nor Quaternions, nor
Thermodynamics. Now for the book that fetched
him ! " Malcomson took it up and looked at it.
As he did so he started, and a sudden pallor over-
spread his face. He looked round uneasily and
shivered slightly, as he murmured to himself:

" The Bible my mother gave me ! What an odd

THE JUDGE'S HOUSE 33

coincidence." He sat down to work again, and the
rats in the wainscot renewed their gambols. They
did not disturb him, however ; somehow their
presence gave him a sense of companionship. But
he could not attend to his work, and after striving
to master the subject on which he was engaged gave
it up in despair, and went to bed as the first streak of
dawn stole in through the eastern window.

He slept heavily but uneasily, and dreamed much ;
and when Mrs. Dempster woke him late in the
morning he seemed ill at ease, and for a few minutes
did not seem to realise exactly whe.re he was. His
first request rather surprised the servant.

" Mrs. Dempster, when I am out to-day I wish
you would get the steps and dust or wash those
pictures— specially that one the third from the
fireplace — I want to see what they are."

Late in the afternoon Malcomson worked at his
books in the shaded walk, and the cheerfulness of
the previous day came back to him as the day wore
on, and he found that his reading was progressing
well. He had worked out to a satisfactory con-
clusion all the problems which had as yet baffled
him, and it was in a state of jubilation that he paid
a visit to Mrs. Witham at "The Good Traveller."
He found a stranger in the cosy sitting-room with
the landlady, who was introduced to him as Dr.
Thornhill. She was not quite at ease, and this,
combined with the doctor's plunging at once into
a series of questions, made Malcomson come to the
conclusion that his presence was not an accident, so
without preliminary he said :

" Dr. Thornhill, I shall with pleasure answer you

3

34 THE JUDGE'S HOUSE

any question you may choose to ask me if you will
answer me one question first."

The doctor seemed surprised, but he smiled and
answered at once, " Done ! What is it ? "

" Did Mrs. Witham ask you to come here and see
me and advise me ? "

Dr. Thornhill for a moment was taken aback, and
Mrs. Witham got fiery red and turned away ; but the
doctor was a frank and ready man, and he answered
at once and openly :

" She did : but she didn't intend you to know it. I
suppose it was my clumsy haste that made you
suspect. She told me that she did not like the idea
of your being" in that house all by yourself, and that
she thought you took too much strong tea. In fact,
she wants me to advise you if possible to give up the
tea and the very late hours. I was a keen student in
my time, so I suppose I may take the liberty of a
college man, and without offence, advise you not quite
as a stranger."

Malcomson with a bright smile held out his hand.
" Shake ! as they say in America," he said. " I must
thank you for your kindness and Mrs. Witham too,
and your kindness deserves a return on my part. I
promise to take no more strong tea — no tea at all till
you let me — and I shall go to bed to-night at one
o'clock at latest. Will that do?"

"Capital," said the doctor. "Now tell us all that
you noticed in the old house," and so Malcomson then
and there told in minute detail all that had happened
in the last two nights. He was interrupted every now
and then by some exclamation from Mrs. Witham, till
finally when he told of the episode of the Bible the

THE JUDGE'S HOUSE 35

landlady's pent-up emotions found vent in a shriek ;
and it was not till a stiff glass of brandy and water had
been administered that she grew composed again.
Dr. Thornhill listened with a face of growing gravity,
and when the narrative was complete and Mrs.
Witham had been restored he asked :

"The rat always went up the rope of the alarm
bell ? "

" Always."

" I suppose you know," said the Doctor after a
pause, " what the rope is ? "

"No!"

" It is," said the Doctor slowly, " the very rope
which the hangman used for all the victims of the
Judge's judicial rancour!" Here he was interrupted
by another scream from Mrs. Witham, and steps had
to be taken for her recovery. Malcomson having
looked at his watch, and found that it was close to
his dinner hour, had gone home before her complete
recovery.

When Mrs. Witham was herself again she almost
assailed the Doctor with angry questions as to what
he meant by putting such horrible ideas into the poor
young man's mind. ." He has quite enough there
already to upset him," she added. Dr. Thornhill
replied.

" My dear madam, I had a distinct purpose in it !
I wanted to draw his attention to the bell rope, and to
fix it there. It may be that he is in a highly over-
wrought state, and has been studying too much,
although I am bound to say that he seems as sound
and healthy a young man, mentally and bodily, as
ever I saw — but then the rats — and that suggestion

36 THE JUDGE'S HOUSE

of the devil." The doctor shook his head and went
on. " I would have offered to go and stay the first
night with him but that I felt sure it would have been
a cause of offence. He may get in the night some
strange fright or hallucination; and if he does I want
him to pull that rope. All alone as he is it will give
us warning, and we may reach him in time to be of
service. I shall be sitting up pretty late to-night and
shall keep my ears open. Do not be alarmed if
Benchurch gets a surprise before morning."

" Oh, Doctor, what do you mean ? What do you
mean ? "

" I mean this ; that possibly — nay, more probably —
we shall hear the great alarm bell from the Judge's
House to-night," and the Doctor made about as
effective an exit as could be thought of.

When Malcomson arrived home he found that it
was a little after his usual time, and Mrs. Dempster
had gone away — the rules of Greenhow's Charity were
not to be neglected. He was glad to see that the
place was bright and tidy with a cheerful fire and a
well-trimmed lamp. The evening was colder than
might have been expected in April, and a heavy wind
was blowing with such rapidly-increasing strength that
there was every promise of a storm during the night.
For a few minutes after his entrance the noise of the
rats ceased ; but so soon as they became accustomed
to his presence they began again. He was glad to
hear them, for he felt once more the feeling of com-
panionship in their noise, and his mind ran back to the
strange fact that they only ceased to manifest them-
selves when that other — the great rat with the baleful
eyes — came upon the scene. The reading-lamp only

THE JUDGE'S HOUSE 37

was lit and its green shade kept the ceiling and the
upper part of the room in darkness, so that the
cheerful light from the hearth spreading over the
floor and shining on the white cloth laid over the end
of the table was warm and cheery. Malcomson sat
down to his dinner with a good appetite and a
buoyant spirit. After his dinner and a cigarette he
sat steadily down to work, determined not to let
anything disturb him, for he remembered his promise
to the doctor, and made up his mind to make the best
of the time at his disposal.

For an hour or so he worked all right, and then his
thoughts began to wander from his books. The actual
circumstances around him, the calls on his physical
attention, and his nervous susceptibility were not to
be denied. By this time the wind had become a gale,
and the gale a storm. The old house, solid though it
was, seemed to shake to its foundations, and the storm
roared and raged through its many chimneys and its
queer old gables, producing strange, unearthly sounds
in the empty rooms and corridors. Even the great
alarm bell on the roof must have felt the force of the
wind, for the rope rose and fell slightly, as though the
bell were moved a little from time to time, and the
limber rope fell on the oak floor with a hard and
hollow sound.

As Malcomson listened to it he bethought himself of
the doctor's words, " It is the rope which the hangman
used for the victims of the Judge's judicial rancour,"
and he went over to the corner of the fireplace and took
it in his hand to look at it. There seemed a sort of
deadly interest in it, and as he stood there he lost himself
for a moment in speculation as to who these victims

38 THE JUDGE'S HOUSE

were, and the grim wish of the Judge to have such a
ghastly relic ever under his eyes. As he stood there
the swaying of the bell on the roof still lifted the rope
now and again ; but presently there came a new
sensation — a sort of tremor in the rope, as though
something was moving along it.

Looking up instinctively Malcomson saw the great
rat coming slowly down towards him, glaring at him
steadily. He dropped the rope and started back with a
muttered curse, and the rat turning ran up the rope
again and disappeared, and at the same instant
Malcomson became conscious that the noise of the rats,
which had ceased for a while, began again.

All this set him thinking, and it occurred to him
that he had not investigated the lair of the rat or
looked at the pictures, as he had intended. He lit
the other lamp without the shade, and, holding it up,
went and stood opposite the third picture from the
fireplace on the right-hand side where he had seen the
rat disappear on the previous night.

At the first glance he started back so suddenly that
he almost dropped the lamp, and a deadly pallor
overspread his face. His knees shook, and heavy
drops of sweat came on his forehead, and he trembled
like an aspen. But he was young and plucky, and
pulled himself together, and after the pause of a few
seconds stepped forward again, raised the lamp, and
examined the picture which had been dusted and
washed, and now stood out clearly

It was of a judge dressed in his robes of scarlet and
ermine. His face was strong and merciless, evil, crafty,
and vindictive, with a sensual mouth, hooked nose
of ruddy colour, and shaped like the beak of a bird of

THE JUDGE'S HOUSE 39

prey. The rest of the face was of a cadaverous colour.
The eyes were of peculiar brilliance and with a terribly
malignant expression. As he looked at them,
Malcomson grew cold, for he saw there the very
counterpart of the eyes of the great rat. The lamp
almost fell from his hand, he saw the rat with its
baleful eyes peering out through the hole in the
corner of the picture, and noted the sudden cessation
of the noise of the other rats. However, he pulled
himself together, and went on with his examination of
the picture.

The Judge was seated in a great high-backed carved
oak chair, on the right-hand side of a great stone
fireplace where, in the corner, a rope hung down from
the ceiling, its end lying coiled on the floor. With
a feeling of something like horror, Malcomson
recognised the scene of the room as it stood, and
gazed around him in an awestruck manner as though
he expected to find some strange presence behind
him. Then he looked over to the corner of the
fireplace — and with a loud cry he let the lamp fall
from his hand.

There, in the judge's arm-chair, with the rope
hanging behind, sat the rat with the Judge's baleful
eyes, now intensified and with a fiendish leer. Save
for the howling of the storm without there was silence.

The fallen lamp recalled Malcomson to himself.
Fortunately it was of metal, and so the oil was not
spilt. However, the practical need of attending to
it settled at once his nervous apprehensions. When
he had turned it out, he wiped his brow and thought
for a moment.

" This will not do," he said to himself. " If I go

4o THE JUDGE'S HOUSE

on like this I shall become a crazy fool. This must
stop ! I promised the doctor I would not take tea.
Faith, he was pretty right ! My nerves must have
been getting into a queer state. Funny I did not
notice it. I never felt better in my life. However,
it is all right now, and I shall not be such a fool again."

Then he mixed himself a good stiff glass of brandy
and water and resolutely sat down to his work.

It was nearly an hour when he looked up from his
book, disturbed by the sudden stillness. Without, the
wind howled and roared louder than ever, and the rain
drove in sheets against the windows, beating like hail
on the glass ; but within there was no sound what-
ever save the echo of the wind as it roared in the
great chimney, and now and then a hiss as a few rain-
drops found their way down the chimney in a lull of the
storm. The fire had fallen low and had ceased to flame,
though it threw out a red glow. Malcomson listened
attentively, and presently heard a thin, squeaking noise,
very faint. It came from the corner of the room where
the rope hung down, and he thought it was the creaking
of the rope on the floor as the swaying of the bell raised
and lowered it. Looking up, however, he saw in the dim
light the great rat clinging to the rope and gnawing
it. The rope was already nearly gnawed through —
he could see the lighter colour where the strands were
laid bare. As he looked the job was completed, and
the severed end of the rope fell clattering on the oaken
floor, whilst for an instant the great rat remained like
a knob or tassel at the end of the rope, which now
began to sway to and fro. Malcomson felt for a
moment another pang of terror as he thought that
now the possibility of calling the outer world to his

THE JUDGE'S HOUSE 41

assistance was cut off, but an intense anger took its
place, and seizing the book he was reading he hurled
it at the rat. The blow was well aimed, but before
the missile could reach him the rat dropped off and
struck the floor with a soft thud. Malcomson instantly-
rushed over towards him, but it darted away and dis-
appeared in the darkness of the shadows of the room,
Malcomson felt that his work was over for the night,
and determined then and there to vary the monotony
of the proceedings by a hunt for the rat, and took off
the green shade of the lamp so as to insure a wider
spreading light. As he did so the gloom of the upper
part of the room was relieved, and in the new flood of
light, great by comparison with the previous darkness,
the pictures on the wall stood out boldly. From
where he stood, Malcomson saw right opposite to him
the third picture on the wall from the right of the
fireplace. He rubbed his eyes in surprise, and then a
great fear began to come upon him.

In the centre of the picture was a great irregular
patch of brown canvas, as fresh as when it was
stretched on the frame. The background was as
before, with chair and chimney-corner and rope, but
the figure of the Judge had disappeared.

Malcomson, almost in a chill of horror, turned
slowly round, and then he began to shake and
tremble like a man in a palsy. His strength seemed
to have left him, and he was incapable of action or
movement, hardly even of thought. He could only
see and hear.

There, on the great high-backed carved oak chair
sat the judge in his robes of scarlet and ermine, with
his baleful eyes glaring vindictively, and a smile of

42 THE JUDGE'S HOUSE

triumph on, the resolute, cruel mouth, as he lifted with
his hands a black cap. Malcomson felt as if the
blood was running from his heart, as one does in
moments of prolonged suspense. There was a sing-
ing in his ears. Without, he could hear the roar and
howl of the tempest, and through it, swept on the
storm, came the striking of midnight by the great
chimes in the market place. He stood for a space of
time that seemed to him endless still as a statue, and
with wide-open, horror-struck eyes, breathless. As
the clock struck, so the 'smile of triumph on the
Judge's face intensified, and at the last stroke of mid-
night he placed the black cap on his head.

Slowly and deliberately the Judge rose from his
chair and picked up the piece of the rope of the alarm
bell which lay on the floor, drew it through his hands
ss if he enjoyed its touch, and then deliberately began
to knot one end of it, fashioning it into a noose. This
he tightened and tested with his foot, pulling hard at
it till he was satisfied and then making a running
noose of it, which he held in his hand. Then he began
to move along the table on the opposite side to Mal-
comson keeping his eyes on him until he had passed
him, when with a quick movement he stood in front
of the door. Malcomson then began to feel that he
was trapped, and tried to think of what he should do.
There was some fascination in the Judge's eyes, which
he never took off him, and he had, perforce, to look.
He saw the Judge approach — still keeping between
him and the door — and raise the noose and throw it
towards him as if to entangle him. With a great
effort he made a quick movement to one side, and
saw the rope fall beside him, and heard it strike the

THE JUDGE'S HOUSE 43

oaken floor. Again the Judge raised the noose and
tried to ensnare him, ever keeping his baleful eyes
fixed on him, and each time by a mighty effort
the student just managed to evade it. So this went
on for many times, the Judge seeming never dis-
couraged nor discomposed at failure, but playing as a
cat does with a mouse. At last in despair, which had
reached its climax, Malcomson cast a quick glance
round him. The lamp seemed to have blazed up,
and there was a fairly good light in the room. At
the many rat-holes and in the chinks and crannies of
the wainscot he saw the rats' eyes ; and this aspect,
that was purely physical, gave him a gleam of com-
fort. He looked around and saw that the rope of the
great alarm bell was laden with rats. Every inch of
it was covered with them, and more and more were
pouring through the small circular hole in the ceiling
whence it emerged, so that with their weight the bell
was beginning to sway.

Hark ! it had swayed till the clapper had touched
the bell. The sound was but a tiny one, but the bell
was only beginning to sway, and it would increase.

At the sound the Judge, who had been keeping his
eyes fixed on Majcohnson, looked up, and a scowl of
diabolical anger overspread his face. . His eyes fairly
glowed like hot coals, and he stamped his foot with
a sound that seemed to make the house shake. A
dreadful peal of thunder broke overhead as he raised
the rope again, whilst the rats kept running up and
down the rope as though working against time. This
time, instead of throwing it, he drew close to his
victim, and held open the noose as he approached.
As he came closer there seemed something paralysing

44 THE JUDGE'S HOUSE

in his very presence, and Malcolmson stood rigid as a
corpse. He felt the Judge's icy ringers touch his
throat as he adjusted the rope. The noose tightened
— tightened. Then the Judge, taking the rigid form of
the student in his arms, carried him over and placed
him standing in the oak chair, and stepping up beside
him, put his hand up and caught the end of the
swaying rope of the alarm bell. As he raised his
hand the rats fled squeaking, and disappeared through
the hole in the ceiling. Taking the end of the noose
which was round Malcolmson's neck he tied it to the
hanging-bell rope, and then descending pulled- away
the chair.

# # * * * *

When the alarm bell of the Judge's House began
to sound a crowd soon assembled. Lights and
torches of various kinds appeared, and soon a silent
crowd was hurrying to the spot. They knocked
loudly at the door, but there was no reply. Then
they burst in the door, and poured into the great
dining-room, the doctor at the head.

There at the end of the rope of the great alarm
bell hung the body of the student, and on the face of
the Judge in the picture was 7. malignant smile.

THE SQUAW

Nurnberg at the time was not so much exploited as
it has been since then. Irving had not been playing
Faust, and the very name of the old town was hardly
known to the great bulk of the travelling public.
My wife and I being in the second week of our honey- -
moon, naturally wanted someone else to join our
party, so that when the cheery stranger, Elias P.
Hutcheson, hailing from Isthmian City, Bleeding
Gulch, Maple Tree County, Neb., turned up at the
station at Frankfort, and casually remarked that he
was going on to see the most all-fired old Methusaleh
of a town in Yurrup, and that he guessed that so much
travelling alone was enough to send an intelligent,
active citizen into the melancholy ward of a daft
house, we took the pretty broad hint and suggested
that we should join forces. We found, on comparing
notes afterwards, that we had each intended to speak
with some diffidence or hesitation so as not to appear
too eager, such not being a good compliment to the
success of our married life ; but the effect was entirely
marred by our both beginning to speak at the same
instant — stopping simultaneously and then going on
together again. Anyhow, no matter how, it was
done ; and Elias P. Hutcheson became one of our
party. Straightway Amelia and I found the pleasant

46 THE SQUAW

benefit ; instead of quarrelling, as we had been doing,
we found that the restraining influence of a third
party was such that we now took every opportunity
of spooning in odd corners. Amelia declares that
ever since she has, as the result of that experience,
advised all her friends to take a friend on the honey-
moon. Well, we "did" Nurnberg together, and
much enjoyed the racy remarks of our Transatlantic
friend, who, from his quaint speech and his wonderful
stock of adventures, might have stepped out of a
novel. We kept for the last object of interest in the
city to be visited the Burg, and on the day appointed
for the visit strolled round the outer wall of the city by
the eastern side.

The Burg is seated on a rock dominating the town,
and an immensely deep fosse guards it on the
northern side. Nurnberg has been happy in that it
was never sacked ; had it been it would certainly not
be so spick and span perfect as it is at present. The
ditch has not been used for centuries, and now its
base is spread with tea-gardens and orchards, of
which some of the trees are of quite respectable
growth. As we wandered round the wall, dawdling
in the hot July sunshine, we often paused to admire
the views spread before us, and in especial the great
plain covered with towns and villages and bounded
with a blue line of hills, like a landscape of Claude
Lorraine. From this we always turned with new
delight to the city itself, with its myriad of quaint
old gables and acre-wide red roofs dotted with dormer
windows, tier upon tier. A little to our right rose the
towers of the Burg, and nearer still, standing grim, the
Torture Tower, which was, and is, perhaps, the most

THE SQUAW 47

interesting place in the city. For centuries the
tradition of the Iron Virgin of Nurnberg has been
handed down as an instance of the horrors of cruelty
of which man is capable ; we had long looked forward
to seeing it ; and here at last was its home.

In one of our pauses we leaned over the wall of the
moat and looked down. The garden seemed quite
fifty or sixty feet below us, and the sun pouring into
it with an intense, moveless heat like that of an oven.
Beyond rose the grey, grim wall seemingly of endless
height, and losing itself right and left in the angles of
bastion and counterscarp. Trees andbushes crowned
the wall, and above again towered the lofty houses
on whose massive beauty Time has only set the hand
of approval. The sun was hot and we were lazy ;
time was our own, and we lingered, leaning on the
wall. Just below us was a pretty sight — a great black
cat lying stretched in the sun, whilst round her
gambolled prettily a tiny black kitten. The mother
would wave her tail for the kitten to play with, or
would raise her feet and push away the little one
as an encouragement to further play. They were just
at the foot of the wall, and Elias P. Hutcheson, in
order to help the play, stooped and took from the
walk a moderate sized pebble.

" See ! " he said, " I will drop it near the kitten, and
they will both wonder where it came from."

" Oh, be careful," said my wife ; " you might hit the
dear little thing!"

"Not me, ma'am," said Elias P. "Why, I'm as
tender as a Maine cherry-tree. Lor, bless ye, I
wouldn't hurt the poor pooty little critter more'n I'd
scalp a baby. An' you may bet your variegated

48 THE SQUAW

socks on that! See, I'll drop it fur away on the
outside so's not to go near her ! " Thus saying, he
leaned over and held his arm out at full length and
dropped the stone. It may be that there is some
attractive force which draws lesser matters to greater ;
or more probably that the wall was not plumb but
sloped to its base — we not noticing the inclination
from above; but the stone fell with a sickening thud
that came up to us through the hot air, right on the
kitten's head, and shattered out its little brains then
and there. The black cat cast a swift upward glance,
and we saw her eyes like green fire fixed an instant on
Elias P. Hutcheson ; and then her attention was
given to the kitten, which lay still with just a quiver
of her tiny limbs, whilst a thin red stream trickled
from a gaping wound. With a muffled cry, such as a
human being might give, she bent over the kitten,
licking its wound and moaning. Suddenly she
seemed to realise that it was dead, and again threw
her eyes up at us. I shall never forget the sight, for
she looked the perfect incarnation of hate. Her green
eyes blazed with lurid fire, and the white, sharp teeth
seemed to almost shine through the blood which
dabbled her mouth and whiskers. She gnashed her
teeth, and her claws stood out stark and at full length
on every paw. Then she made a wild rush up the
wall as if to reach us, but when the momentum ended
fell back, and further added to her horrible appearance
for she fell on the kitten, and rose with her black fur
smeared with its brains and blood. Amelia turned
quite faint, and I had to lift her back from the wall.
There was a seat close by in shade of a spreading
plane-tree, and here I placed her whilst she com-

THE SQUAW 49

posed herself. Then I went back to Hutcheson, who
stood without moving, looking down on the angry cat
below.

As I joined him, he said :

" Wall, I guess that air the savagest beast I ever
see — 'cept once when an Apache squaw had an edge
on a half-breed what they nicknamed 'Splinters' 'cos
of the way he fixed up her papoose which he stole on
a raid just to show that he appreciated the way they
had given his mother the fire torture. She got that
kinder look so set on her face that it jest seemed to
grow there. She followed Splinters more'n three year
till at last the braves got him and handed him over to
her. They did say that no man, white or Injun, had
ever been so long a-dying under the tortures of the
Apaches. The only time I ever see her smile was
when I wiped her out. I kem on the camp just in
time to see Splinters pass in his checks, and he wasn't
sorry to go either. He was a hard citizen, and
though I never could shake with him after that
papoose business — for it was bitter bad, and he
should have been a white man, for he looked like one

I see he had got paid out in full. Durn me, but I

took a piece of his hide from one of his skinnin'
posts an' had it made into a pocket-book. It's here
now ! " and he slapped the breast pocket of his
coat.

Whilst he was speaking the cat was continuing her
frantic efforts to get up the wall. She would take a
run back and then charge up, sometimes reaching an
incredible height. She did not seem to mind the
heavy fall which she got each time but started with
renewed vigour ; and at every tumble her appearance

5o THE SQUAW

became more horrible. Hutcheson was a kind-hearted
man — my wife and I had both noticed little acts of
kindness to animals as well as to persons — and he
seemed concerned at the state of fury to which the cat
had wrought herself.

"Wall, now ! " he said, " I du declare that that poor
critter seems quite desperate. There ! there I poor
thing, it was all an accident — though that won't bring
back your little one to you. Say ! I wouldn't have
had such a thing happen for a thousand ! Just shows
what a clumsy fool of a man can do when he tries to
play ! Seems I'm too darned slipperhanded to even
play with a cat. Say Colonel ! " it was a pleasant way
he had to bestow titles freely — " I hope your wife
don't hold no grudge against me on account of this
unpleasantness ? Why, I wouldn't have had it occur
on no account."

He came over to Amelia and apologised profusely,
and she with her usual kindness of heart hastened to
assure him that she quite understood that it was an
accident. Then we all went again to the wall and
looked over.

The cat missing Hutcheson's face had drawn back
across the moat, and was sitting on her haunches as
though ready to spring. Indeed, the very instant she
saw him she did spring, and with a blind unreasoning
fury, which would have been grotesque, only that it
was so frightfully real. She did not try to run up the
wall, but simply launched herself at him as though
hate and fury could lend her wings to pass straight
through the great distance between them. Amelia,
womanlike, got quite concerned, and said to Elias P.
in a warning voice ;

THE SQUAW 51

"Oh! you must be very careful. That animal
would try to kill you if she were here ; her eyes look
like positive murder."

He laughed out jovially, " Excuse me, ma'am,"
he said, " but I can't help laughin'. Fancy a man
that has fought grizzlies an' Injuns bein' careful
of bein' murdered by a cat ! "

When the cat heard him laugh, her whole de-
meanour seemed to change. She no longer tried to
jump or run up the wall, but went quietly over, and
sitting again beside the dead kitten began to lick and
fondle it as though it were alive.

" See ! " said I, " the effect of a really strong man.
Even that animal in the midst of her fury recognises
the voice of a master, and bows to him ! "

" Like a squaw ! " was the only comment of Elias
P. Hutcheson, as we moved on our way round the
city fosse. Every now and then we looked over the
wall and each time saw the cat following us. At
first she had kept going back to the dead kitten, and
then as the distance grew greater took it in her mouth
and so followed. After a while, however, she aban-
doned this, for we saw her following all alone ; she
had evidently hidden the body somewhere. Amelia's
alarm grew at the cat's persistence, and more than once
she repeated her warning ; but the American always
laughed with amusement, till finally, seeing that she
was beginning to be worried, he said :

" I say, ma'am, you needn't be skeered over that
cat. I go heeled, I du!" Here he slapped his
pistol pocket at the back of his lumbar region.
" Why sooner'n have you worried, I'll shoot the
critter, right here, an' risk the police interferin' with

52 THE SQUAW

a citizen of the United States for carryin' arms
contrairy to regulations ! " As he spoke he looked
over the wall, but the cat, on seeing him, retreated,
with a growl, into a bed of tall flowers, and was
hidden. He went on : " Blest if that ar critter ain't
got more sense of what's good for her than most
Christians. I guess we've seen the last of her !
You bet, she'll go back now to that busted kitten
and have a private funeral of it, all to herself! "

Amelia did not like to say more, lest he might, in
mistaken kindness to her, fulfil his threat of shooting
the cat : and so we went on and crossed the little
wooden bridge leading to the gateway whence ran
the steep paved roadway between the Burg and the
pentagonal Torture Tower. As we crossed the
bridge we saw the cat again down below us. When
she saw us her fury seemed to return, and she made
frantic efforts to get up the steep wall. Hutcheson
laughed as he looked down at her, and said :

" Good-bye, old girl. Sorry I in-jured your feelin's,
but you'll get over it in time ! So long ! " And
then we passed through the long, dim archway and
came to the gate of the Burg.

When we came out again after our survey of this
most beautiful old place which not even the well-
intentioned efforts of the Gothic restorers of forty
years ago have been able to spoil — though their
restoration was then glaring white — we seemed to
have quite forgotten the unpleasant episode of the
morning. The old lime tree with its great trunk
gnarled with the passing of nearly nine centuries, the
deep well cut through the heart of the rock by those
captives of old, and the lovely view from the city

THE SQUAW 53

wall whence we heard, spread over almost a full
quarter of an hour, the multitudinous chimes of the
city, had all helped to wipe out from our minds the
incident of the slain kitten.

We were the only visitors who had entered the
Torture Tower that morning — so at least said the old
custodian — and as we had the place all to ourselves
were able to make a minute and more satisfactory
survey than would have otherwise been possible.
The custodian, looking to us as the sole source of his
gains for the day, was willing to meet our wishes in
any way. The Torture Tower is truly a grim place,
even now when many thousands of visitors have sent
a stream of life, and the joy that follows life, into the
place ; but at the time I mention it wore its grimmest
and most gruesome aspect. The dust of ages seemed
to have settled on it, and the darkness and the horror
of its memories seem to have become sentient in a
way that would have satisfied the Pantheistic souls of
Philo or Spinoza. The lower chamber where we
entered was seemingly, in its normal state, filled with
incarnate darkness ; even the hot sunlight streaming
in through the door seemed to be lost in the vast
thickness of the walls, and only showed the masonry
rough as when the builder's scaffolding had come
down, but coated with dust and marked here and
there with patches of dark stain which, if walls could
speak, could have given their own dread memories of
fear and pain. We were glad to pass up the dusty
wooden staircase, the custodian leaving the outer door
open to light us somewhat on our way ; for to our eyes
the one long-wick'd, evil-smelling candle stuck in a
sconce on the wall gave an inadequate light. When

54 THE SQUAW

we came up through the open trap in the corner of the
chamber overhead, Amelia held on to me so tightly
that I could actually feel her heart beat. I must say
for my own part that I was not surprised at her fear,
for this room was even more gruesome than that
below. Here there was certainly more light, but
only just sufficient to realise the horrible surroundings
of the place. The builders of the tower had evidently
intended that only they who should gain the top
should have any of the joys of light and prospect.
There, as we had noticed from below, were ranges of
windows, albeit of mediaeval smallness, but elsewhere
in the tower were only a very few narrow slits such as
were habitual in places of mediaeval defence. A few
of these only lit the chamber, and these so high up in.
the wall that from no part could the sky be seen
through the thickness of the walls. In racks, and
leaning in disorder against the walls, were a number
of headsmen's swords, great double-handed weapons
with broad blade and keen edge. Hard by were
several blocks whereon the necks of the victims had
lain, with here and there deep notches where the steel
had bitten through the guard of flesh and shored into
the wood. Round the chamber, placed in all sorts of
irregular ways, were many implements of torture
which made one's heart ache to see — chairs full of
spikes which gave instant and excruciating pain ;
chairs and couches with dull knobs whose torture was
seemingly less, but which, though slower, were
equally efficacious ; racks, belts, boots, gloves, collars,
all made for compressing at will ; steel baskets in
which the head could be slowly crushed into a pulp
if necessary ; watchmen's hooks with long handle and

THE SQUAW SS

knife that cut at resistance — this a specialty of the old
Nurnberg police system ; and many, many other
devices for man's injury to man. Amelia grew quite
pale with the horror of the things, but fortunately did
not faint, for being a little overcome she sat down on
a torture chair, but jumped up again with a shriek,
all tendency to faint gone. We both pretended that
it was the injury done to her dress by the dust of the
chair, and the rusty spikes which had upset her, and
Mr. Hutcheson acquiesced in acccepting the explana-
tion with a kind-hearted laugh.

But the central object in the whole of this chamber
of horrors was the engine known as the Iron Virgin,
which stood near the centre of the room. It was a
rudely-shaped figure of a woman, something of the
bell order, or, to make a closer comparison, of the
figure of Mrs. Noah in the children's Ark, but without
that slimness of waist and perfect rondeur of hip
which marks the aesthetic type of the Noah family.
One would hardly have recognised it as intended for a
human figure at all had not the founder shaped on the
forehead a rude semblance of a woman's face. This
machine was coated with rust without, and covered
with dust ; a rope was fastened to a ring in the front
of the figure, about where the waist should have been,
and was drawn through a pulley, fastened on the
wooden pillar which sustained the flooring above.
The custodian pulling this rope showed that a section
of the front was hinged like a door at one side ; we
then saw that the engine was of considerable thick-
ness, leaving just room enough inside for a man to be
placed. The door was of equal thickness and of
great weight, for it took the custodian all his strength,

56 THE SQUAW

aided though he was by the contrivance of the pulley,
to open it. This weight was partly due to the fact
that the door was of manifest purpose hung so as to
throw its weight downwards, so that it might shut of
its own accord when the strain was released. The
inside was honeycombed with rust — nay more, the
rust alone that comes through time would hardly
have eaten so deep into the iron walls ; the rust of
the cruel stains was deep indeed ! It was only,
however, when we came to look at the inside of the
door that the diabolical intention was manifest to the
full. Here were several long spikes, square and
massive, broad at the base and sharp at the points,
placed in such a position that when the door should
close the upper ones would pierce the eyes of the
victim, and the lower ones his heart and vitals. The
sight was too much for poor Amelia, and this time
she fainted dead off, and I had to carry her down the
stairs, and place her on a bench outside till she
recovered. That she felt it to the quick was after-
wards shown by the fact that my eldest son bears to
this day a rude birthmark on his breast, which has,
by family consent, been accepted as representing the
Nurnberg Virgin.

When we got back to the chamber we found
Hutcheson still opposite the Iron Virgin ; he had
been evidently philosophising, and now gave us the
benefit of his thought in the shape of a sort of
exordium.

" Wall, I guess I've been learnin' somethin' here
while madam has b'een gettin' over her faint. 'Pears to
me that we're a long way behind the times on our side
of the big drink. We uster think out on the plains that

THE SQUAW 57

the Injun could give us points in tryin' to make a
man oncomfortable ; but I guess your o]d mediseval
law-and-order party could raise him every time.
Splinters was pretty good in his bluff on the squaw,
but this here young miss held a straight flush all high
on him. The points of them spikes air sharp enough
still, though even the edges air eaten out by what
uster be on them. It'd be a good thing for our
Indian section to get some specimens of this here
play-toy to send round to the Reservations jest to
knock the stuffin' out of the bucks, and the squaws
too, by showing them as how old civilisation lays
over them at their best. Guess but I'll get in that
box a minute jest to see how it feels ! "

" Oh no ! no ! " said Amelia. " It is too terrible ! "

" Guess, ma'am, nothin's too terrible to the explorin'
mind. I've been in some queer places in my time.
Spent a night inside a dead horse while a prairie fire
swept over me in Montana Territory — an' another
time slept inside a dead buffler when the Comanches
was on the war path an' I didn't keer to leave my
kyard on them. I've been two days in a caved-in
tunnel in the Billy Broncho gold mine in New Mexico,
an' was one of the four shut up for three parts of a
day in the caisson what slid over on her side when we
was sett in* the foundations of the Buffalo Bridge.
I've not funked an odd experience yet, an' I don't
propose to begin now ! "

We saw that he was set on the experiment, so I
said: " Well, hurry up, old man, and get through it
quick ? "

" All right, General," said he, " but I calculate we
ain't quite ready yet. The gentlemen, my pre-

58 THE SQUAW

decessors, what stood in that thar canister didn't
volunteer for the office — not much ! And I guess
there was some ornamental tyin' up before the big
stroke was made. I want to go into this thing fair
and square, so I must get fixed up proper first. I
dare say this old galoot can rise some string and tie
me up accordin' to sample ? "

This was said interrogatively to the old custodian,
but the latter, who understood the drift of his speech,
though perhaps not appreciating to the full the
niceties of dialect and imagery, shook his head. His
protest was, however, only formal and made to be
overcome. The American thrust a gold piece into
his hand, saying, " Take it, pard ! it's your pot ; and
don't be skeer'd. This ain't no necktie party that
you're asked to assist in ! " He produced some thin
frayed rope and proceeded to bind our companion
with sufficient strictness for the purpose. When the
upper part of his body was bound, Hutcheson said :

" Hold on a moment, Judge. Guess I'm too heavy
for you to tote into the canister. You jest let me
walk in, and then you can wash up regarclin' my
legs ! "

Whilst speaking he had backed himself into the
opening which was just enough to hold him. It was
a close fit and no mistake. Amelia looked on with
fear in her eyes, but she evidently did not like to say
anything. Then the custodian completed his task by
tying the American's feet together so that he was now
absolutely helpless and fixed in his voluntary prison.
He seemed to really enjoy it, and the incipient smile
which was habitual to his face blossomed into ac-
tuality as he said :

THE SQUAW 59

" Guess this here Eve was made out of the rib of a
dwarf! There ain't much room for a full-grown
citizen of the United States to hustle. We uster
make our coffins more roomier in Idaho territory.
Now, Judge, you jest begin to let this door down,
slow, on to me. I want to feel the same pleasure as
the other jays had when those spikes began to move
toward their eyes ! "

"Oh no! no! no!" broke in Amelia hysterically.
" It is too terrible ! I can't bear to see it ! — I can't !
I can't! "

But the American was obdurate. "Say, Colonel,"
said he, "Why not take Madame for a little prom-
enade ? I wouldn't hurt her feelin's for the world ;
but now that I am here, havin' kem eight thousand
miles, wouldn't it be too hard to give up the very ex-
perience I've been pinin' an' pantin' fur ? A man
can't get to feel like canned goods every time ! Me
and the Judge here'll fix up this thing in no time, an'
then you'll come back, an' we'll all laugh together ! "

Once more the resolution that is born of curiosity
triumphed, and Amelia stayed holding tight to my
arm and shivering whilst the custodian began to
slacken slowly inch by inch the rope that held back
the iron door. Hutcheson's face was positively
radiant as his eyes followed the first movement of the
spikes.

" Wall ! " he said, " I guess I've not had enjoyment
like this since I left Noo York. Bar a scrap with a
French sailor at Wapping — an' that warn't much of a
picnic neither — I've not had a show fur real pleasure
in this dod-rotted Continent, where there ain't no b'ars
nor no Injuns, an* wheer nary man goes heeled.

Go THE SQUAW

Slow there, Judg-e ! Don't you rush this business ! I
want a show for my money this game — I du ! "

The custodian must have had in him some of the
blood of his predecessors in that ghastly tower, for he
worked the engine with a deliberate and excruciating
slowness which after five minutes, in which the outer
edge of the door had not moved half as many inches,
began to overcome Amelia. I saw her lips whiten,
and felt her hold upon my arm relax. I looked
around an instant for a place whereon to lay her, and
when I looked at her again found that her eye had
become fixed on the side of the Virgin. Following
its direction I saw the black cat crouching out of
sight. Her green eyes shone like danger lamps in
the gloom of the place, and their colour was height-
ened by the blood which still smeared her coat and
reddened her mouth. I cried out:

" The cat ! look out for the cat ! " for even then she
sprang out before the engine. At this moment she
looked like a triumphant demon. Her eyes blazed
.with ferocity, her hair bristled out till she seemed
twice her normal size, and her tail lashed about as
does a tiger's when the quarry is before it. Elias P.
Hutcheson when he saw her was amused, and his
eyes positively sparkled with fun as he said :

" Darned if the squaw hain't got on all her war
paint ! Jest give her a shove off if she comes any of
her tricks on me, for I'm so fixed everlastingly by the
boss, that durn my skin if I can keep my eyes from
her if she wants them ! Easy there, Judge ! don't
you slack that ar rope or I'm euchered ! "

At this moment Amelia completed her faint, and I
had to clutch hold of her round the waist or she would

THE SQUAW 6 1

have fallen to the floor. Whilst attending to her I
saw the black cat crouching for a spring, and jumped
up to turn the creature out

But at that instant, with a sort of hellish scream,
she hurled herself, not as we expected at Hutcheson,
but straight at the face of the custodian. Her claws
seemed to be tearing wildly as one sees in the Chinese
drawings of the dragon rampant, and as I looked I
saw one of them light on the poor man's eye, and
actually tear through it and down his cheek, leaving a
wide band of red where the blood seemed to spurt
from every vein.

With a yell of sheer terror which came quicker than
even his sense of pain, the man leaped back, drop-
ping as he did so the rope which held back the iron
door. I jumped for it, but was too late, for the cord
ran like lightning through the pulley-block, and the
heavy mass fell forward from its own weight.

As the door closed I caught a glimpse of our poor
companion's face. He seemed frozen with terror. His
eyes stared with a horrible anguish as if dazed, and no
sound came from his lips.

And then the spikes did their work. Happily the
end was quick, for when I wrenched open the door
they had pierced so deep that they had locked in the
bones of the skull through which they had crushed,
and actually tore him — it — out of his iron prison till,
bound as he was, he fell at full length with a sickly
thud upon the floor, the face turning upward as he
fell.

I rushed to my wife, lifted her up and carried her
out, for I feared for her very reason if she should
wake from her faint to such a scene. I laid her on

6z THE SQUAW

the bench outside and ran back. Leaning against the
wooden column was the custodian moaning in pain
whilst he held his reddening handkerchief to his eyes.
And sitting on the head of the poor American was
the cat, purring loudly as she licked the blood which
trickled through the gashed socket of his eyes.

I think no one will call me cruel because I seized
one of the old executioner's swords and shore her in
two as she sat.

THE
SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD

When Margaret Dalandre went to live at Brent's
Rock the whole neighbourhood awoke to the pleasure
of an entirely new scandal. Scandals in connection
with either the Delandre family or the Brents of
Brent's Rock, were not few ; and if the secret history
of the county had been written in full both names
would have been found well represented. It is true
that the status of each was so different that they might
have belonged to different continents — or to different
worlds for the matter of that — for hitherto their orbits
had never crossed. The Brents were accorded by the
whole section of the country an unique social domin-
ance, and had ever held themselves as .high above the
yeoman class to which Margaret Delandre belonged,
as a blue-blooded Spanish hidalgo out-tops his
peasant tenantry.

The Delandres had an ancient record and were
proud of it in their way as the Brents were of theirs.
But the family had never risen above yeomanry ; and
although they had been once well-to-do in the good
old times of foreign wars and protection, their fortunes
had withered under the scorching of the free trade sun
and the " piping times of peace." They had, as the

64 THE SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD

elder members used to assert, " stuck to the land," with
the result that they had taken root in it, body and
soul. In fact, they, having chosen the life of veget-
ables, had flourished as vegetation does — blossomed
and thrived in the good season and suffered in the
bad. Their holding, Dander's Croft, seemed to have
been worked out, and to be typical of the family which
had inhabited it. The latter had declined generation
after generation, sending out now and again some
abortive shoot of unsatisfied energy in the shape of a
soldier or sailor, who had worked his way to the minor
grades of the services and had there stopped, cut short
either from unheeding gallantry in action or from that
destroying cause to men without breeding or youthful
care — the recognition of a position above them which
they feel unfitted to fill. So, little by little, the family
dropped lower and lower, the men brooding and dis-
satisfied, and drinking themselves into the grave, the
women drudging at home, or marrying beneath them
— or worse. In process of time all disappeared, leaving
only two in the Croft, Wykham Delandre and his
sister Margaret. The man and woman seemed to
have inherited in masculine and feminine form re-
spectively the evil tendency of their race, sharing in
common the principles, though manifesting them in
different ways, of sullen passion, voluptuousness and
recklessness.

The history of the Brents had been something
similar, but showing the causes of decadence in their
artistocratic and not their plebeian forms. They, too,
had sent their shoots to the wars ; but their positions
had been different, and they had often attained honour
— for without flaw they were gallant, and brave deeds

THE SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD 65

were done by them before the selfish dissipation which
marked them had sapped their vigour.

The present head of the family — if family it could
now be called when one remained of the direct line —
was Geoffrey Brent He was almost a type of a worn-
out race, manifesting- in some ways its most brilliant
qualities, and in others its utter degradation. He
might be fairly compared with some of those antique
Italian nobles whom the painters have preserved to us
with their courage, their unscrupulousness, their refine-
ment of lust and cruelty — the voluptuary actual with
the fiend potential. He was certainly handsome,
with that dark, aquiline, commanding beauty which
women so generally recognise as dominant With
men he was distant and cold ; but such a bearing
never deters womankind. The inscrutable laws of sex
have so arranged that even a timid woman is not afraid
of a fierce and haughty man. And so it was that
there was hardly a woman of any kind or degree, who
lived within view of Brent's Rock, who did not cherish
some form of secret admiration for the handsome
wastrel. The category was a wide one, for Brent's
Rock rose up steeply from the midst of a level region
and for a circuit .of a hundred miles it lay on the
horizon, with its high old towers and steep roofs cut-
ting the level edge of wood and hamlet, and far-
scattered mansions.

So long as Geoffrey Brent confined his dissipations
to London and Paris and Vienna — anywhere out of
sight and sound of his home— opinion was silent. It
is easy to listen to far off echoes unmoved, and we
can treat them with disbelief, or scorn, or disdain, or
whatever attitude of coldness may suit our purpose.

5

66 THE SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD

But when the scandal came close home it was another
matter ; and the feelings of independence and integrity
which is in people of every community which is not
utterly spoiled, asserted itself and demanded that
condemnation should be expressed. Still there was a
certain reticence in all, and no more notice was taken
of the existing facts than was absolutely necessary.
Margaret Delandre bore herself so fearlessly and so
openly — she accepted her position as the justified
companion of Geoffrey Brent so naturally that
people came to believe that she was secretly married
to him, and therefore thought it wiser to hold their
tongues lest time should justify her and also make
her an active enemy.

The one person who, by his interference, could have
settled all doubts was debarred by circumstances from
interfering in the matter. Wykham Delandre had
quarrelled with his sister — or perhaps it was that she
had quarrelled with him — and they were on terms not
merely of armed neutrality but of bitter hatred. The
quarrel had been antecedent to Margaret going to
Brent's Rock. She and Wykham had almost come
to blows. There had certainly been threats on one
side and on the other ; and in the end Wykham over-
come with passion, had ordered his sister to leave his
house. She bad risen straightway, and, without waiting
to pack up even her own personal belongings, had
walked out of the house. On the threshold she had
paused for a moment to hurl a bitter threat at Wykham
that he would rue in shame and despair to the last
hour of his life his act of that day. Some weeks had
since passed ; and it was understood in the neighbour-
hood that Margaret had gone to London, when she sud-

THE SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD 67

denly appeared driving out with Geoffrey Brent, and the
entire neighbourhood knew before nightfall that she
had taken up her abode at the Rock. It was no
subject of surprise that Brent had come back unex-
pectedly, for such was his usual custom. Even his
own servants never knew when to expect him, for
there was a private door, of which he alone had the
key, by which he sometimes entered without anyone
in the house being aware of his coming. This was his
usual method of appearing after a long absence.

Wykham Delandre was furious at the news. He
vowed vengeance — and to keep his mind level with
his passion drank deeper than ever. He tried several
times to see his sister, but she contemptuously refused
to meet him. He tried to have an interview with
Brent and was refused by him also. Then he tried
to stop him in the road, but without avail, for Geoffrey
was not a man to be stopped against his will. Several
actual encounters took place between the two men,
and many more were threatened and avoided. At last
Wykham Dela.idre settled down to a morose, vengeful
acceptance of the s tuation,

Neither Margaret nor Geoffrey was of a pacific
temperament, and it was not long before there began
to be quarrels between them. One thing would lead
to another, and wine flowed freely at Brent's Rock.
Now and again the quarrels would assume a bitter
aspect, and threats would be exchanged in uncom-
promising language that fairly awed the listening
servants. But such quarrels generally ended where
domestic altercations do, in reconciliation, and in a
mutual respect for the fighting qualities proportionate
to their manifestation. Fighting for its own sake is

68 THE SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD

found by a certain class of persons, all the world over,
to be a matter of absorbing interest, and there is no
reason to believe that domestic conditions minimise its
potency. Geoffrey and Margaret made occasional
absences from Brent's Rock, and on each of these
occasions Wykham Delandre also absented himself ;
but as he generally heard of the absence too late to be
of any service, he returned home each time in a more
bitter and discontented frame of mind than before.

At last there came a time when the absence from
Brent's Rock became longer than before. Only a few
days earlier there had been a quarrel, exceeding in
bitterness anything which had gone before ; but this,
too, had been made up, and a trip on the Continent
had been mentioned before the servants. After a few
days Wykham Delandre also went away, and it was
some weeks before he returned. It was noticed that
he was full of some new importance — satisfaction, ex-
altation— they hardly knew how to call it. He went
straightway to Brent's Rock, and demanded to see
Geoffrey Brent, and on being told that he had not yet
returned, said, with a grim decision which the servants
noted :

"I shall come again. My news is solid — it can
wait ! " and turned away. Week after week went by,
and month after month ; and then there came ?. rumour,
certified later on, that an accident had occurred in the
Zermatt valley. Whilst crossing a dangerous pass the
carriage containing an English lady and the driver
had fallen over a precipice, the gentleman of the party,
Mr. Geoffrey Brent, having been fortunately saved as
he had been walking up the hill to ease the horses.
He gave information, and search was made. The

THE SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD 69

broken rail, the excoriated roadway, the marks where
the horses had struggled on the decline before finally-
pitching over into the torrent — all told the sad tale.
It was a wet season, and there had been much snow in
the winter, so that the river was swollen beyond its
usual volume, and the eddies of the stream were packed
with ice. All search was made, and finally the wreck
of the carriage and the body of one horse were found
in an eddy of the river. Later on the body of the
driver was found on the sandy, torrent-swept waste
near Tasch ; but the body of the lady, like that of the
other horse, had quite disappeared, and was — what
was left of it by that time — whirling amongst the
eddies of the Rhone on its way down to the Lake of
Geneva.

Wykham Delandre made all the enquiries possible,
but could not find any trace of the missing woman.
He found, however, in the books of the various hotels
the name of " Mr. and Mrs. Geoffrey Brent." And he
had a stone erected at Zermatt to his sister's memory,
under her married name, and a tablet put up in the
church at Bretten, the parish in which both Brent's
Rock and Dander's Croft were situated.

There was a lapse of nearly a year, after the excite-
ment of the matter had worn away, and the whole
neighbourhood had gone on its accustomed way.
Brent was still absent, and Delandre more drunken,
more morose, and more revengeful than before.

Then there was a new excitement. Brent's Rock
was being made ready for a new mistress. It was
officially announced by Geoffrey himself in a letter to
the Vicar, that he had been married some months
before to an Italian lady, and that they were then

70 THE SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD

on their way home. Then a small army of workmen
invaded the house ; and hammer and plane sounded,
and a general air of size and paint pervaded the
atmosphere. One wing of the old house, the south,
was entirely re-done ; and then the great body of the
workmen departed, leaving only materials for the doing
of the old hall when Geoffrey Brent should have re-
turned, for he had directed that the decoration was
only to be done under his own eyes. He had brought
with him accurate drawings of a hall in the house of
his bride's father, for he wished to reproduce for her
the place to which she had been accustomed. As the
moulding had all to be re-done, some scaffolding poles
and boards were brought in and laid on one side of the
great hall, and also a great wooden tank or box for
mixing the lime, which was laid in bags beside it.

When the new mistress of Brent's Rock arrived the
bells of the church rang out, and there was a general
jubilation. She was a beautiful creature, full of the
poetry and 6re and passion of the South ; and the few
English words which she had learned were spoken in
such a sweet and pretty broken way that she won the
hearts of the people almost as much by the music of
her voice as by the melting beauty of her dark eyes.

Geoffrey Brent seemed more happy than he had ever
before appeared ; but there was a dark, anxious look
on his face that was new to those who knew him of old,
and he started at times as though at some noise that
was unheard by others.

And so months passed and the whisper grew that at
last Brent's Rock was to have an heir. Geoffrey was
very tender to his wife, and the new bond between
them seemed to soften him. He took more interest in

THE SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD 71

his tenants and their needs than he had ever done ;
and works of charity on his part as well as on his
sweet young wife's were not Jacking. He seemed to
have set all his hopes on the child that was coming,
and as he looked deeper into the future the dark
shadow that had come over his face seemed to die
gradually away.

All the time Wykham Delandre nursed his revenge.
Deep in his heart had grown up a purpose of vengeance
which only waited an opportunity to crystallise and
take a definite shape. His vague idea was somehow
centred in the wife of Brent, for he knew that he could
strike him best through those he loved, and the coming
time seemed to hold in its womb the opportunity for
which he longed. One night he sat alone in the living-
room of his house. It had once been a handsome
room in its way, but time and neglect had done their
work and it was now little better than a ruin, without
dignity or picturesqueness of any kind. He had been
drinking heavily for some time and was more than
half stupefied. He thought he heard a noise as of
someone at the door and looked up. Then he called
half savagely to come in ; but there was no response.
With a muttered blasphemy he renewed his potations.
Presently he forgot all around him, sank into a daze,
but suddenly awoke to see standing before him some
one or something like a battered, ghostly edition of his
sister. For a few moments there came upon him a
sort of fear. The woman before him, with distorted
features and burning eyes seemed hardly human, and
the only thing that seemed a reality of his sister, as
she had been, was her wealth of golden hair, and this
was now streaked with grey. She eyed her brother

72 THE SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD

with a long, cold stare ; and he, too, as he looked and
began to realise the actuality of her presence, found
the hatred of her which he had had, once again surging
up in his heart All the brooding passion of the past
year seemed to find a voice at once as he asked her : —

" Why are you here ? You're dead and buried."

"I am here, Wykham Delandre, for no love of you,
but because I hate another even more than I do you ! "
A great passion blazed in her eyes.

" Him ? " he asked, in so fierce a whisper that even
the woman was for an instant startled till she regained
her calm.

" Yes, him ! " she answered. " But make no mistake,
my revenge is my own ; and I merely use you to help
me to it." Wykham asked suddenly :

" Did he marry you ? "

The woman's distorted face broadened out in a
ghastly attempt at a smile. It was a hideous mockery,
for the broken features and seamed scars took strange
shapes and strange colours, and queer lines of white
showed out as the straining muscles pressed on the old
cicatrices.

" So you would like to know ! It would please your
pride to feel that your sister was truly married ! Well,
you shall not know. That was my revenge on you,
and I do not mean to change it by a hair's breadth.
I have come here to-night simply to let you know that
I am alive, so that if any violence be done me where
I am going there may be a witness."

" Where are you going? " demanded her brother.

" That is my affair ! and I have not the least inten-
tion of letting you know!" Wykham stood up, but
the drink was on him and he reeled and fell. As he

THE SECRET OK THE GROWING GOLD 73

lay on the floor he announced his intention of following
his sister ; and with an outburst of splenetic humour
told her that he would follow her through the darkness
by the light of her hair, and of her beauty. At this
she turned on him, and said that there were others
beside him that would rue her hair and her beauty
too. " As he will," she hissed ; " for the hair remains
though the beauty be gone. When he withdrew the
lynch-pin and sent us over the precipice into the
torrent, he had little thought of my beauty. Perhaps
his beauty would be scarred like mine were he whirled,
as I was, among the rocks of the Visp, and frozen on
the ice pack in the drift of the river. But let him
beware! His time is coming!" and with a fierce
gesture she flung open the door and passed out into
the night.

*******

Later on that night, Mrs. Brent, who was but half-
asleep, became suddenly awake and spoke to her
husband :

" Geoffrey, was not that the click of a lock some-
where below our window ? "

But Geoffrey — though she thought that he, too, had
started at the noise — seemed sound asleep, and
breathed heavily. Again Mrs. Brent dozed ; but this
time awoke to the fact that her husband had arisen
and was partially dressed. He was deadly pale, and
when the light of the lamp which he had in his hand
fell on his face, she was frightened at the look in his
eyes.

"What is it, Geoffrey? What dost thou?" she
asked.

" Hush ! little one," he answered, in a strange, hoarse

74 THE SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD

voice. " Go to sleep. I am restless, and wish to
finish some work I left undone."

" Bring it here, my husband," she said ; " I am lonely
and I fear when thou art away."

For reply he merely kissed her and went out, closing
the door behind him. She lay awake for awhile, and
then nature asserted itself, and she slept.

Suddenly she started broad awake with the memory
in her ears of a smothered cry from somewhere not
far off. She jumped up and ran to the door and
listened, but there was no sound. She grew alarmed
for her husband, and called out : " Geoffrey !
Geoffrey ! "

After a few moments the door of the great hall
opened, and Geoffrey appeared at it, but without his
lamp.

" Hush ! " he said, in a sort of whisper, and his
voice was harsh and stern. " Hush ! Get to bed ! I
am working, and must not be disturbed. Go to sleep,
and do not wake the house '"

With a chill in her heart — for the harshness of her
husband's voice was new to her — she crept back to bed
and lay there trembling, too frightened to cry, and
listened to every sound. There was a long pause of
silence, and then the sound of some iron implement
striking muffled blows ! Then there came a clang of
a heavy stone falling, followed by a muffled curse.
Then a dragging sound, and then more noise of stone
on stone. She lay all the while in an agony of fear,
and her heart beat dreadfully. She heard a curious
sort of scraping sound ; and then there was silence.
Presently the door opened gently, and Geoffrey
appeared. His wife pretended to be asleep; but

THE SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD

75

through her eyelashes she saw him wash from his
hands something- white that looked like lime.

In the morning he made no allusion to the previous
night, and she was afraid to ask any question.

From that day there seemed some shadow over
Geoffrey Brent. He neither ate nor slept as he had
been accustomed, and his former habit of turning
suddenly as though someone were speaking from
behind him revived. The old hall seemed to have
some kind of fascination for him. He used to go
there many times in the day, but grew impatient if
anyone, even his wife, entered it. ■ When the builder's
foreman came to inquire about continuing his work
Geoffrey was out driving ; the man went into the hall,
and when Geoffrey returned the servant told him of
his arrival and where he was. With a frightful oath
he pushed the servant aside and hurried up to the old
hall. The workman met him almost at the door;
and as Geoffrey burst into the room he ran against
him. The man apologised :

" Beg pardon, sir, but I was just going out to make
some enquiries. I directed twelve sacks of lime to be
sent here, but I see there are only ten."

" Damn the ten sacks and the twelve too ! " was the
ungracious and incomprehensible rejoinder.

The workman looked surprised, and tried to turn
the conversation.

" I see, sir, there is a little matter which our people
must have done ; but the governor will of course see
it set right at his own cost/'

" What do you mean ? "

" That 'ere 'arth-stone, sir : Some idiot must have
put a scaffold pole on it and cracked it right down

>6 THE SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD

the middle, and it's thick enough you'd think to stand
hanythink." Geoffrey was silent for quite a minute,
and then said in a constrained voice and with much
gentler manner :

" Tell your people that I am not going on with the
work in the hall at present. I want to leave it as it
is for a while longer."

" All right sir. I'll send up a few of our chaps to
take away these poles and lime bags and tidy the
place up a bit."

"No! No!" said Geoffrey, "leave them where
they are. I shall send and tell you when you are to
get on with the work." So the foreman went away,
and his comment to his master was :

" I'd send in the bill, sir, for the work already done.
'Pears to me that money's a little shaky in that
quarter."

Once or twice Deiandre tried to stop Brent on
the road, and, at last, finding that he could not
attain his object rode after the carriage, calling
out :

"What has become of my sister, your wife."
Geoffrey lashed his horses into a gallop, and the
other, seeing from his white face and from his wife's
collapse almost into a faint that his object was
attained, rode away with a scowl and a laugh.

That night when Geoffrey went into the hall he
passed over to the great fireplace, and all at once
started back with a smothered cry. Then with an
effort he pulled himself together and went away,
returning with a light. He bent down over the
broken hearth-stone to see if the moonlight falling
through the storied window had in any way deceived

THE SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD 77

him. Then with a groan of anguish he sank to his
knees.

There, sure enough, through the crack in the broken
stone were protruding a multitude of threads of golden
hair just tinged with grey !

He was disturbed by a noise at the door, and
looking round, saw his wife standing in the doorway.
In the desperation of the moment he took action to
prevent discovery, and lighting a match at the lamp,
stooped down and burned away the hair that rose
through the broken stone. Then rising nonchalantly
as he could, he pretended surprise at seeing his wife
beside him.

For the next week he lived in an agony ; for,
whether by accident or design, he could not find
himself alone in the hall for any length of time. At
each visit the hair had grown afresh through the
crack, and he had to watch it carefully lest his terrible
secret should be discovered. He tried to find a
receptacle for the body of the murdered woman
outside the house, but someone always interrupted
him ; and once, when he was coming out of the
private doorway, he was met by his wife, who began
to question him .about it, and manifested surprise that
she should not have before noticed the key which he
now reluctantly showed her. Geoffrey dearly and
passionately loved his wife, so that any possibility of
her discovering his dread secrets, or even of doubting
him, filled him with anguish ; and after a couple
of days had passed, he could not help coming
to the conclusion that, at least, she suspected
something.

That very evening she came into the hall after her

78 THE SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD

drive and found him there sitting moodily by the
deserted fireplace. She spoke to him directly.

" Geoffrey, I have been spoken to by that fellow
Delandre, and he says horrible things. He tells to
me that a week ago his sister returned to his house,
the wreck and ruin of her former self, with only her
golden hair as of old, and announced some fell
intention. He asked me where she is — and oh,
Geoffrey, she is dead, she is dead ! So how can she
have returned ? Oh I I am in dread, and I know not
where to turn ! "

For answer, Geoffrey burst into a torrent of
blasphemy which made her shudder. He cursed
Delandre and his sister and all their kind, and in
especial he hurled curse after curse on her golden
hair.

"Oh, hush! hush!" she said, and was then silent,
for she feared her husband when she saw the evil
effect of his humour. Geoffrey in the torrent of his
anger stood up and moved away from the hearth ;
but suddenly stopped as he saw a new look of terror
in his wife's eyes. He followed their glance, and
then he, too, shuddered — for there on the broken
hearth-stone lay a golden streak as the points of the
hair rose through the crack.

" Look, look ! " she shrieked. " Is it some ghost of
the dead ! Come away — come away ! " and seizing
her husband by the wrist with the frenzy of madness,
she pulled him from the room.

That night she was in a raging fever. The doctor
of the district attended her at once, and special aid
was telegraphed for to London. Geoffrey was in
despair, and in his anguish at the danger of his young

THE SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD 79

wife almost forgot his own crime and its consequences.
In the evening the doctor had to leave to attend to
others ; but he left Geoffrey in charge of his wife.
His last words were :

"Remember, you must humour her till I come in
the morning, or till some other doctor has her case in
hand. What you have to dread is another attack of
emotion. See that she is kept warm. Nothing more
can be done."

Late in the evening, when the rest of the household
had retired, Geoffrey's wife got up from her bed and
called to her husband.

"Come!" she said. "Come to the old hall! I
know where the gold comes from ! I want to see it
grow ! "

Geoffrey would fain have stopped her, but he feared
for her life or reason on the one hand, and lest in a
paroxysm she should shriek out her terrible suspicion,
and seeing that it was useless to try to prevent her,
wrapped a warm rug around her and went with her to
the old hall. When they entered, she turned and shut
the door and locked it.

" We want no strangers amongst us three to-night ! "
she whispered with a wan smile.

"We three! nay we are but two," said Geoffrey
with a shudder ; he feared to say more.

" Sit here," said his wife as she put out the light.
" Sit here by the hearth and watch the gold growing.
The silver moonlight is jealous ! See it steais along
the floor towards the gold — our gold ! " Geoffrey
looked with growing horror, and saw that during the
hours that had passed the golden hair had protruded
further through the broken hearth-stone. He tried to

80 THE SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD

hide it by placing- his feet over the broken place ; and
his wife, drawing her chair beside him, leant over and
laid her head on his shoulder.

"Now do not stir, dear," she said ; "let us sit still
and watch. We shall find the secret of the growing-
gold ! " He passed his arm round her and sat silent ;
and as the moonlight stole along the floor she sank to
sleep.

He feared to wake her ; and so sat silent and
miserable as the hours stole away.

Before his horror-struck eyes the golden-hair from

the broken stone grew and grew ; and as it increased,

so his heart got colder and colder, till at last he had

not power to stir, and sat with eyes full of terror

watching his doom.

* * * * # *

In the morning when the London doctor came,
neither Geoffrey nor his wife could be found. Search
was made in all the rooms, but without avail. As a
last resource the great door of the old hall was broken
open, and those who entered saw a grim and sorry
sight.

There by the deserted hearth Geoffrey Brent and his
young wife sat cold and white and dead. Her face
was peaceful, and her eyes were closed in sleep ; but
his face was a sight that made all who saw it shudder,
for there was on it a look of unutterable horror. The
eyes were open and stared glassily at his feet, which
were twined with tresses of golden hair, streaked with
grey, which came through the broken hearth-stone.

A GIPSY PROPHECY

" I really think," said the Doctor, "that, at any rate,
one of us should go and try whether or not the thing
is an imposture."

"Good!" said Considine. "After dinner we will
take our cigars and stroll over to the camp."

Accordingly, when the dinner was over, and the La
Tour finished, Joshua Considine and his friend, Dr.
Burleigh, went over to the east side of the moor, where
the gipsy encampment lay. As they were leaving,
Mary Considine, who had walked as far as the end of
the garden where it opened into the laneway, called
after her husband :

" Mind, Joshua, you are to give them a fair chance,
but don't give them any clue to a fortune — and don't
you get flirting with any of the gipsy maidens — and
take care to keep Gerald out of harm."

For answer Considine held up his hand, as if taking
a stage oath, and whistled the air of the old song,
" The Gipsy Countess." Gerald joined in the strain,
and then, breaking into merry laughter, the two men
passed along the laneway to the common, turning
now and then to wave their hands to Mary, who leaned
over the gate, in the twilight, looking after them.

It was a lovely evening in the summer ; the very air
was full of rest and quiet happiness, as though an

82 A GIPSY PROPHECY

outward type of the peacefulness and joy which made
a heaven of the home of the young married folk.
Considine's life had not been an eventful one. The
only disturbing element which he had ever known was
in his wooing of Mary Winston, and the long-continued
objection of her ambitious parents, who expected a
brilliant match for their only daughter. When Mr.
and Mrs. Winston had discovered the attachment of
the young barrister, they had tried to keep the young
people apart by sending their daughter away for a
long round of visits, having made her promise not to
correspond with her lover during her absence. Love,
however, had stood the test. Neither absence nor
neglect seemed to cool the passion of the young man,
and jealousy seemed a thing unknown to his sanguine
nature ; so, after a long period of waiting, the parents
had given in, and the young folk were married.

They had been living in the cottage a few months,
and were just beginning to feel at home. Gerald
Burleigh, Joshua's old college chum, and himself a
sometime victim of Mary's beauty, had arrived a week
before, to stay with them for as long a time as he
could tear himself away from his work in London.

When her husband had quite disappeared Mary
went into the house, and, sitting down at the piano,
gave an hour to Mendelssohn.

It was but a short walk across the common, and
before the cigars required renewing the two men had
reached the gipsy camp. The place was as picturesque
as gipsy camps — when in villages and when business
is good — usually are. There were some few persons
round the fire, investing their money in prophecy, and
a large number of others, poorer or more parsimonious,

A GIPSY PROPHECY 83

who stayed just outside" the bounds, but near enough
to see all that went on.

As the two gentlemen approached, the villagers,
who knew Joshua, made way a little, and a pretty,
keen-eyed gipsy girl tripped up and asked to tell
their fortunes. Joshua held out his hand, but the girl,
without seeming to see it, stared at his face in a very
odd manner. Gerald nudged him :

"You must cross her hand with silver," he said.
" It is one of the most important parts of the mystery."
Joshua took from his pocket a half-crown and held it
out to her, but, without looking at it, she answered :

"You must cross the gipsy's hand with gold."

Gerald laughed. "You are at a premium as a
subject," he said. Joshua was of the kind of man — >
the universal kind — who can tolerate being stared at
by a pretty girl ; so, with some little deliberation, he
answered ;

" All right ; here you are, my pretty girl J but you
must give me a real good fortune for it," and he
handed her a half sovereign, which she took,
saying :

" It is not for me to give good fortune or bad, but
only to read what the Stars have said." She took his
right hand and turned it palm upward ; but the instant
her eyes met it she dropped it as though it had been
red hot, and, with a startled look, glided swiftly away.
Lifting the curtain of the large tent, which occupied
the centre of the camp, she disappeared within.

"Sold again!" said the cynical Gerald. Joshua
stood a little amazed, and not altogether satisfied.
They both watched the large tent. In a few moments
there emerged from the opening not the young girl,

84 A GIPSY PROPHECY

but a stately looking woman of middle age and com-
manding presence.

The instant she appeared the whole camp seemed
to stand still. The clamour of tongues, the laughter
and noise of the work were, for a second or two,
arrested, and every man or woman who sat, or
crouched, or lay, stood up and faced the imperial
looking gipsy.

"The Queen, of course," murmured Gerald. "We
are in luck to-night." The gipsy Queen threw a
searching glance around the camp, and then, without
hesitating an instant, came straight over and stood
before Joshua.

" Hold out your hand," she said in a commanding
tone.

Again Gerald spoke, sotto voce : " I have not been
spoken to in that way since I was at school."

" Your hand must be crossed with gold."

" A hundred per cent, at this game," whispered
Gerald, as Joshua laid another half sovereign on his
upturned palm.

The gipsy looked at the hand with knitted brows ;
then suddenly looking up into his face, said :

" Have you a strong will — have you a true heart
that can be brave for one you love ? "

" I hope so ; but I am afraid I have not vanity
enough to say ' yes.' "

" Then I will answer for you ; for I read resolution
in your face — resolution desperate and determined
if need be. You have a wife you love ? "

"Yes," emphatically.

" Then leave her at once — never see her face again.
Go from her now, while love is fresh and your heart is

A GIPSY PROPHECY 85

free from wicked intent. Go quick — go far, and never
see her face again ! "

Joshua drew away his hand quickly, and said :
" Thank you ! " stiffly but sarcastically, as he began
to move away.

" I say ! " said Gerald, " you're not going like that,
old man ; no use in being indignant with the Stars or
their prophet — and, moreover, your sovereign — what
of it ? At least, hear the matter out"

" Silence, ribald ! " commanded the Queen, " you
know not what you do. Let him go — and go ignorant,
if he will not be warned."

Joshua immediately turned back. " At all events,
we will see this thing out," he said. " Now, madam,
you have given me advice, but I paid for a fortune."

" Be warned ! " said the gipsy. " The Stars have
been silent for long ; let the mystery still wrap them
round."

" My dear madam, I do not get within touch of a
mystery every day, and I prefer for my money
knowledge rather than ignorance. I can get the
latter commodity for nothing when I want any of
it."

Gerald echoed the sentiment. " As for me I have
a large and unsaleable stock on hand."

The gipsy Queen eyed the two men sternly, and
then said. "As you wish. You have chosen for
yourself, and have met warning with scorn, and appeal
with levity. On your own heads be the doom ! "

" Amen ! " said Gerald.

With an imperious gesture the Queen took Joshua's
hand again, and began to tell his fortune.

" I see here the flowing of blood ; it will flow before

86 A GIPSY PROPHECY

long ; it is running in my sight, It flows through the
broken circle of a severed ring."

" Go on ! " said Joshua, smiling. Gerald was
silent.

"Must I speak plainer?"

"Certainly ; we commonplace mortals want some-
thing definite. The Stars are a long way off, and
their words get somewhat dulled in the message."

The gipsy shuddered, and then spoke impressively.
" This is the hand of a murderer — the murderer of
his wife ! " She dropped the hand and turned away.

Joshua laughed. "Do you know," said he, "I
think if I were you I should prophesy some juris-
prudence into my system. For instance, you say
' this hand is the hand of a murderer.' Well, whatever
it may be in the future — or potentially — it is at
present not one. You ought to give your prophecy
in such terms as ' the hand which will be a murderer's,'
or, rather, ' the hand of one who will be the murderer
of his wife.' The Stars are really not good on technical
questions."

The gipsy made no reply of any kind, but, with
drooping head and despondent mien, walked slowly
to her tent, and, lifting the curtain, disappeared.

Without speaking the two men turned homewards,
and walked across the moor. Presently, after some
little hesitation, Gerald spoke.

"Of course, old man, this is all a joke; a ghastly
one, but still a joke. But would it not be well to keep
it to ourselves ? "

" How do you mean ? "

" Well, not to tell your wife. It might alarm her."

"Alarm her! My dear Gerald, what are you

A GIPSY PROPHECY 87

thinking of? Why, she would not be alarmed or
afraid of me if all the gipsies that ever didn't come
from Bohemia agreed that I was to murder her, or
even to have a hard thought of her, whilst so long
as she was saying ' Jack Robinson.' "

Gerald remonstrated. " Old fellow, women are
superstitious — far more than we men are ; and, also,
they are blessed — or cursed — with a nervous system
to which we are strangers. I see too much of it in my
work not to realise it. Take my advice and do not let
her know, or you will frighten her."

Joshua's lips unconsciously hardened as he
answered : " My dear fellow, I would not have a
secret from my wife. Why, it would be the beginning
of a new order of things between us. We have no
secrets from each other. If we ever have, then you
may begin to look out for something odd between us."

"Still," said Gerald, "at the risk of unwelcome
interference, I say again be warned in time."

" The gipsy's very words," said Joshua. " You
and she seem quite of one accord. TeSl me, old man,
is this a put-up thing ? You told me of the gipsy
camp — did you arrange it all with Her Majesty?"
This was said, with an air of bantering earnestness.
Gerald assured him that he only heard of the camp
that morning ; but he made fun of every answer of
his friend, and, in the process of this raillery, the time
passed, and they entered the cottage.

Mary was sitting by the piano but not playing.
The dim twilight had waked some very tender feelings
in her breast, and her eyes were full of gentle tears.
When the men came in she stole over to her husband's
side and kissed him. Joshua struck a tragic attitude.

8S A GIPSY PROPHECY

" Mary," he said in a deep voice, " before you
approach me, listen to the words of Fate. The Stars
have spoken and the doom is sealed."

" What is it, dear ? Tell me the fortune, but do
not frighten me."

" Not at all, my dear ; but there is a truth which it
is well that you should know. Nay, it is necessary so
that all your arrangements can be made beforehand,
and everything be decently done and in order."

" Go on, dear ; I am listening."

" Mary Considine, your effigy may yet be seen at
Madame Tussaud's. The juris-imprudent stars have
announced their fell tidings that this hand is red with
blood — your blood. Mary! Mary! my God!" He
sprang forward, but too late to catch her as she fell
fainting on the floor.

" I told you," said Gerald. " You don't know them
as well as I do."

After a little while Mary recovered from her swoon,
but only to fall into strong hysterics, in which she
laughed and wept and raved and cried, " Keep him
from me — from me, Joshua, my husband," and many
other words of entreaty and of fear.

Joshua Considine was in a state of mind bordering
on agony, and when at last Mary became calm he
knelt by her and kissed her feet and hands and hair
and called her all the sweet names and said all the
tender things his lips could frame. All that night he
sat by her bedside and held her hand. Far through
the night and up to the early morning she kept
waking from sleep and crying out as if in fear, till she
was comforted by the consciousness that her husband
was watching beside her.

A GIPSY PROPHECY 89

Breakfast was late the next morning, but during it
Joshua received a telegram which required him to
drive over to Withering, nearly twenty miles. He
was loth to go ; but Maty would not hear of his
remaining, and so before noon he drove off in his
dog-cart alone.

When he was gone Mary retired to her room. She
did not appear at lunch, but when afternoon tea was
served on the lawn, under the great weeping willow,
she came to join her guest. She was looking quite
recovered from her illness of the evening before.
After some casual remarks, she said to Gerald: "Of
course it was very silly about last night, but I could
not help feeling frightened. Indeed I would feel so
still if I let myself think of it. But, after all, these
people may only imagine things, and I have got a
test that can hardly fail to show that the prediction is
false — if indeed it be false," she added sadly.

" What is your plan ? " asked Gerald.

" I shall go myself to the gipsy camp, and have my
fortune told by the Queen."

" Capital. May I go with you? "

"Oh, no ! That would spoil it. She might know
you and guess at me, and suit her utterance
accordingly. I shall go alone this afternoon.'*

When the afternoon was gone Mary Considine took
her way to the gipsy encampment. Gerald went with
her as far as the near edge of the common, and
returned alone,

Half-an-hour had hardly elapsed when Mary entered
the drawing-room, where he lay on a sofa reading.
She was ghastly pale and was in a state of extreme
excitement. Hardly had she passed over the thres-

go A GIPSY PROPHECY

hold when she collapsed and sank moaning on the
carpet. ■ Gerald rushed to aid her, but by a great
effort she controlled herself and motioned him to be
silent. He waited, and his ready attention to her
wish seemed to be her best help, for, in a few minutes,
she had somewhat recovered, and was able to tell him
what had passed.

" When I got to the camp," she said, " there did
not seem to be a soul about. I went into the centre
and stood there. Suddenly a tall woman stood
beside me. ( Something told me I was wanted ! ' she
said. I held out my hand and laid a piece of silver
on it. She took from her neck a small golden trinket
and laid it there also ; and then, seizing the two, threw
them into the stream that ran by. Then she took my
hand in hers and spoke : ' Naught but blood in this
guilty place,' and turned away. I caught hold of her
and asked her to tell me more. After some hesitation,
she said : ' Alas ! alas ! I see you lying at your
husband's feet, and his hands are red with blood.' "

Gerald did not feel at all at ease, and tried to laugh
it off. " Surely," he said, " this woman has a craze
about murder."

"Do not laugh," said Mary, "I cannot bear it,"
and then, as if with a sudden impulse, she left the
room.

Not long after Joshua returned, bright and cheery,
and as hungry as a hunter after his long drive. His
presence cheered his wife, who seemed much brighter,
.but she did not mention the episode of the visit to the
gipsy camp, so Gerald did not mention it either. As
if by tacit consent the subject was not alluded to
during the evening. But there was a strange, settled

A GIPSY PROPHECY 91

look on Mary's face, which Gerald could not but
observe.

In the morning Joshua came down to breakfast
later than usual. Mary had been up and about the
house from an early hour ; but as the time drew on
she seemed to get a little nervous, and now and again
threw around an anxious look.

Gerald could not help noticing that none of those
at breakfast could get on satisfactorily with their food.
It was not altogether that the chops were tough, but
that the knives were all so blunt. Being a guest, he,
of course, made no sign ; but presently saw Joshua
draw his thumb across the edge of his knife in an un-
conscious sort of way. At the action Mary turned
pale and almost fainted.

After breakfast they all went out on the lawn.
Mary was making up a bouquet, and said to her
husband, " Get me a few of the tea-roses, dear."

Joshua pulled down a cluster from the front of the
house. The stem bent, but was too tough to break.
He put his hand in his pocket to get his knife ; but in
vain. " Lend me your knife, Gerald," he said. But
Gerald had not got one, so he went into the breakfast-
room and took one from the table. He came out
feeling its edge and grumbling. " What on earth has
happened to all the knives — the edges seem all ground
off?" Mary turned away hurriedly and entered the
house.

Joshua tried to sever the stalk with the blunt knife
as country cooks sever the necks of fowl — as school-,
boys cut twine. With a little effort he finished the
task , The cl uster of roses grew thick, so he
determined to gather a great bunch.

92 A GIPSY PROPHECY

He could not find a single sharp knife in the side-
board where the cutlery was kept, so he called Mary,
and when she came, told her the state of things. She
looked so agitated and so miserable that he could not
help knowing the truth, and, as if astounded and hurt,
asked her :

" Do you mean to say that you have done it ? "

She broke in, " Oh, Joshua, I was so afraid."

He paused, and a set, white look came over his
face. " Mary ! " said he, " is this all the trust you
have in me ? I would not have believed it."

" Oh, Joshua ! Joshua ! " she cried entreatingly,
" forgive me," and wept bitterly.

Joshua thought a moment and then said : " I see
how it is. We shall better end this or we shall all go
mad."

He ran into the drawing-room.

" Where are you going ? " almost screamed Mary.

Gerald saw what he meant — that he would not be
tied to blunt instruments by the force of a superstition,
and was not surprised when he saw him come out
through the French window, bearing in his hand a
large Ghourka knife, which usually lay on the centre
table, and which his brother had sent him from
Northern India. It was one of those great hunting-
knives which worked such havoc, at close quarters
with the enemies of the loyal Ghourkas during the
mutiny, of great weight but so evenly balanced in the
hand as to seem light, and with an edge like a razor.
With one of these knives a Ghourka can cut a sheep
in two.

When Mary saw him come out of the room with
the weapon in his hand she screamed in an agony of

A GIPSY PROPHECY 93

fright, and the hysterics of last night were promptly
renewed,

Joshua ran toward her, and, seeing her falling,
threw down the knife and tried to catch her.

However, he was just a second too late, and the
two men cried out in horror simultaneously as they
saw her fall upon the naked blade.

When Gerald rushed over he found that in falling
her left hand had struck the blade, which lay partly
upwards on the grass. Some of the small veins were
cut through, and the blood gushed freely from the
wound, As he was tying it up he pointed out to
Joshua that the wedding ring was severed by the steel.

They carried her fainting to the house. When,
after a while, she came out, with her arm in a sling,
she was peaceful in her mind and happy. She said
to her husband :

" The gipsy was wonderfully near the truth ; too
near for the real thing ever to occur now, dear."

Joshua bent over and kissed the wounded hand.

THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA

The little Cornish port of Pencastle was bright in the
early April, when the sun had seemingly come to stay
after a long and bitter winter. Boldly and blackly
the rock stood out against a background of shaded
blue, where the sky fading into mist met the far
horizon. The sea was of true Gornish hue — sapphire,
save where it became deep emerald green in the
fathomless depths under the cliffs, where the seal
caves opened their grim jaws. On the slopes the
grass was parched and brown. The spikes of furze
bushes were ashy grey, but the golden yellow of
their flowers streamed along the hillside, dipping out
in lines as the rock cropped up, and lessening into
patches and dots till finally it died away all together
where the sea winds swept round the jutting cliffs and
cut short the vegetation as though with an ever-work-
ing aerial shears. The whole hillside, with its body of
brown and flashes of yellow, was just like a colossal
yellow-hammer.

The little harbour opened from the sea between
towering cliffs, and behind a lonely rock, pierced with
many caves and blow-holes through which the sea in
storm time sent its thunderous voice, together with a
fountain of drifting spume. Hence, it wound west-
wards in a serpentine course, guarded at its entrance
by two little curving piers to left and right. These

96 THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA

were roughly built of dark slates placed endways and
held together with great beams bound with iron bands.
Thence, it flowed up the rocky bed of the stream
whose winter torrents had of old cut out its way
amongst the hills. This stream was deep at first,
with here and there, where it widened, patches of
broken rock exposed at low water, full of holes where
crabs and lobsters were to be found at the ebb of the
tide. From amongst the rocks rose sturdy posts, used
for warping in the little coasting vessels which fre-
quented the port. Higher up, the stream still flowed
deeply, for the tide ran far inland, but always calmly
for all the force of the wildest storm was broken below.
Some quarter mile inland the stream was deep at
high water, but at low tide there were at each side
patches of the same broken rock as lower down,
through the chinks of which the sweet water of the
natural stream trickled and murmured after the tide
had ebbed away. Here, too, rose mooring posts for
the fishermen's boats. At either side of the river was
a row of cottages down almost on the level of high
tide. They were pretty cottages, strongly and snugly
built, with trim narrow gardens in front, full of bUi -
fashioned plants, flowering currants, coloured prim-
roses, wallflower, and stonecrop. Over the fronts of
many of them climbed clematis and wisteria. The
window sides and door posts of all were as white as
snow, and the little pathway to each was paved with
light coloured stones. At some of the doors were tiny
porches, whilst at others were rustic seats cut from
tree trunks or from old barrels ; in nearly every case
the window ledges were filled with boxes or pots of
flowers or foliage plants.

THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA 97

Two men lived in cottages exactly opposite each
other across the stream. Two men, both young-, both
good-looking, both prosperous, and who had been
companions and rivals from their boyhood. Abel
Behenna was dark with the gypsy darkness which the
Phoenician mining wanderers left in their track ; Eric
Sanson — which the local antiquarian said was a cor-
ruption of Sagamanson — was fair, with the ruddy hue
which marked the path of the wild Norseman. These
two seemed to have singled out each other from the
very beginning to work and strive together, to fight
for each other and to stand -back to back in all en-
deavours. They had now put the coping-stone on
their Temple of Unity by falling in love with the
same girl. Sarah Trefusis was certainly the prettiest
girl in Pencastle, and there was many a young man
who would gladly have tried his fortune with her, but
that there were two to contend against, and each of
these the strongest and most resolute man in the port
— except the other. The average young man thought
that this was very hard, and on account of it bore no
good will to either of the three principals : whilst the
average young woman who had, lest worse should be-
fall, to put up. with the grumbling of her sweetheart,
and the sense of being only second best which it im-
plied, did not either, be sure, regard Sarah with friendly
eye. Thus it came, in the course of a year or so, for
rustic courtship is a slow process, that the two men and
the woman found themselves thrown much together.
They were all satisfied, so it did not matter, and Sarah,
who was vain and something frivolous, took care to
have her revenge on both men and women in a quiet
way. When a young woman in her "walking out"

7

98 THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA

can only boast one not-quite-satisfied young man, it
is no particular pleasure to her to see her escort cast
sheep's eyes at a better-looking girl supported by two
devoted swains.

At length there came a time which Sarah dreaded,
and which she had tried to keep distant — the time
when she had to make her choice between the two
men. She liked them both, and, indeed, either of them
might have satisfied the ideas of even a more exacting
girl. But her mind was so constituted that she thought
more of what she might lose, than of what she might
gain ; and whenever she thought she had made up her
mind she became instantly assailed with doubts as to
the wisdom of her choice. Always the man whom
she had presumably lost became endowed afresh with
a newer and more bountiful crop of advantages than
had ever arisen from the possibility of his acceptance.
She promised each man that on her birthday she
would give him his answer, and that day, the I ith of
April, had now arrived. The promises had been
given singly and confidentially, but each was given
to a man who was not likely to forget. Early in the
morning she found both men hovering round her door.
Neither had taken the other into his confidence, and
each was simply seeking an early opportunity ofgetting
his answer, and advancing his suit if necessary.
Damon, as a rule, does not take Pythias with him
when making a proposal ; and in the heart of each
man his own affairs had a claim far above any re-
quirements of friendship. So, throughout the day,
they kept seeing each other out. The position was
doubtless somewhat embarrassing to Sarah, and
though the satisfaction of her vanity that she should

THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA 99

be thus adored was very pleasing, yet there were
moments when she was annoyed with both men for
being so persistent. Her only consolation at such
moments was that she saw, through the elaborate
smiles of the other girls when in passing they noticed
her door thus doubly guarded, the jealousy which
filled their hearts. Sarah's mother was a person ot
commonplace and sordid ideas, and, seeing all along
the state of affairs, her one intention, persistently ex-
pressed to her daughter in the plainest of words, was
to so arrange matters that Sarah should get all that
was possible out of both men. ' With this purpose she
had cunningly kept herself as far as possible in the
background in the matter of her daughter's wooings,
and watched in silence. At first Sarah had been in-
dignant with her for her sordid views ; but, as usual,
her weak nature gave way before persistence, and she
had now got to the stage of passive acceptance. She
was not surprised when her mother whispered to her
in the little yard behind the house : —

" Go up the hill-side for a while ; I want to talk to
these two. They're both red-hot for ye, and now's
the time to get things fixed ! " Sarah began a feeble
remonstrance, but her mother cut her short.

"I tell ye, girl, that my mind is made up! Both
these men want ye, and only one can have ye, but
before ye choose it'll be so arranged that ye'll have all
that both have got ! Don't argy, child ! Go up the
hill-side, and when ye come back I'll have it fixed — I
see a way quite easy ! " So Sarah went up the hill-
side through the narrow paths between the golden
furze, and Mrs. Trefusis joined the two men in the
living-room of the little house.

ioo THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA

She opened the attack with the desperate courage
which is in all mothers when they think for their
children, howsoever mean the thoughts may be.

" Ye two men, ye're both in love with my Sarah ! "

Their bashful silence gave consent to the barefaced
proposition. She went on.

" Neither of ye has much ! " Again they tacitly
acquiesced in the soft impeachment.

" I don't know that either of ye could keep a wife ! "
Though neither said a word their looks and bearing
expressed distinct dissent. Mrs. Trefusis went on :

" But if ye'd put what ye both have together ye'd
make a comfortable home for one of ye — and Sarah ! "
She eyed the men keenly, with her cunning eyes half
shut, as she spoke ; then satisfied from her scrutiny
that the idea was accepted she went on quickly, as if
to prevent argument :

" The girl likes ye both, and mayhap it's hard for
her to choose. Why don't ye toss up for her ? First
put your money together — ye've each got a bit put by, '
I know. Let the lucky man take the lot and trade
with it a bit, and then come home and marry her.
Neither of ye's afraid, I suppose ! And neither of
ye'll say that he won't do that much for the girl that
ye both say ye love ! "

Abel broke the silence :

'" It don't seem the square thing to toss for the girl !
She wouldn't like it herself, and it doesn't seem — seem
respectful like to her — " Eric interrupted. He was
conscious that his chance was not so good as Abel's,
in case Sarah should wish to choose between them :

" Are ye afraid of the hazard ? "

" Not me ! " said Abel, boldly. Mrs. Trefusis,

THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA 101

seeing that her idea was beginning to work, followed
up the advantage.

"It is settled that ye put yer money together to
make a home for her, whether ye toss for her or leave
it for her to choose ? "

" Yes," said Eric quickly, and Abel agreed with
equal sturdiness. Mrs. Trefusis' little cunning eyes
twinkled. She heard Sarah's step in the yard, and
said :

"Weil! here she comes, and I leave it to her."
And she went out.

During her brief walk on the hillside Sarah had been
trying to make up her mind. She was feeling almost
angry with both men for being the cause of her
difficulty, and as she came into the room said shortly :

" I want to have a word with you both — come to
the Flagstaff Rock, where we can be alone." She
took her hat and went out of the house up the wind-
ing path to the steep rock crowned with a high flag-
staff, where once the wreckers' fire basket used to burn.
This was the rock which formed the northern jaw of
the little harbour. There was only room on the path
for two abreast, and it marked the state of things pretty
well when, by a sort of implied arrangement, Sarah went
first, and the two men followed, walking abreast and
keeping step. By this time, each man's heart was
boiling with jealousy. When they came to the top of
of the rock, Sarah stood against the flagstaff, and the
two young men stood opposite her. She had chosen
her position with knowledge and intention, for there
was no room for anyone to stand beside her. They
were all silent for a while ; then Sarah began to laugh
and said : —

io2 THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA

" I promised the both of you to give you an answer
to-day. I've been thinking and thinking and thinking,
till I began to get angry with you both for plaguing me
so ; and even now I don't seem any nearer than ever
I was to making up my mind." Eric said suddenly :

" Let us toss for it, lass ! " Sarah showed no indig-
nation whatever at the proposition ; her mother's
eternal suggestion had schooled her to the acceptance
of something of the kind, and her weak nature made it
easy to her to grasp at any way out of the difficulty.
She stood with downcast eyes idly picking at the
sleeve of her dress, seeming to have tacitly acquiesced
in the proposal. Both men instinctively realising this,
pulled each a coin from his pocket, spun it in the air,
and dropped his other hand over the palm on which
it lay. For a few seconds they remained thus, all
silent ; then Abel, who was the more thoughtful of the
men, spoke :

" Sarah ! is this good ? " As he spoke he removed
the upper hand from the coin and placed the latter
back in his pocket. Sarah was nettled.

" Good or bad, it's good enough for me ! Take it
or leave it as you like," she said, to which he replied
quickly :

" Nay lass ! Aught that concerns you is good enow
for me. I did but think of you lest you might have
pain or disappointment hereafter. If you love Eric
better nor me, in God's name say so, and I think I'm
man enow to stand aside. Likewise, if I'm the one,
don't make us both miserable for life ! " Face to face
with a dfficulty, Sarah's weak nature proclaimed itself ;
she put her hands before her face and began to cry,
saying —

THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA 103

" It was my mother. She keeps telling me ! " The
silence which followed was broken by Eric, who said
hotly to Abel :

" Let the lass alone, can't you ? If she wants to
choose this way, let her. It's good enough for me
— and for you, too ! She's said it now, and must
abide by it ! " Hereupon Sarah turned upon him
in sudden fury, and cried :

" Hold your tongue ! What is it to you, at any-
rate?" and she resumed her crying. Eric was so
flabbergasted that he had not a word to say, but stood
looking particularly foolish, with his mouth open and
his hands held out with the coin still between them.
All were silent till Sarah, taking her hands from her
face, laughed hysterically and said :

" As you two can't make up your minds, I'm going
home ! " and she turned to go.

"Stop," said Abel, in an authoritative voice. "Eric,
you hold the coin, and I'll cry. Now, before we settle
it, let us clearly understand : the man who wins takes
all the money that we both have got, brings it to Bristol
and ships on a voyage and trades with it. Then he
comes back and marries Sarah, and they two keep all,
whatever there may be, as the result of the trading.
Is this what we understand ? "

"Yes," said Eric.

" I'll marry him on my next birthday," said Sarah.
Having said it the intolerably mercenary spirit of her
action seemed to strike her, and impulsively she
turned away with a bright blush. Fire seemed to
sparkle in the eyes of both the men. Said Eric : " A
year so be ! The man that wins is to have one year."

" Toss ! " cried Abel, and the coin spun in the air.

io4 THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA

Eric caught it, and again held it between his out-
stretched hands.

" Heads ! " cried Abel, a pallor sweeping over his
face as he spoke. As be leaned forward to look Sarah
leaned forward too, and their heads almost touched.
He could feel her hair blowing on his cheek, and it
thrilled through him like fire. Eric lifted his upper
hand ; the coin lay with its head up. Abel stepped
forward and took Sarah in his arms. With a curse
Eric hurled the coin far into the sea. Then he leaned
against the flagstaff and scowled at the others with
his hands thrust deep in his pockets. Abel whispered
wild words of passion and delight into Sarah's ears,
and as she listened she began to believe that fortune
had rightly interpreted the wishes of her secret heart,
and that she loved Abel best.

Presently Abel looked up and caught sight of Eric's
face as the last ray of sunset struck it. The red light
intensified the natural ruddiness of his complexion,
and he looked as though he were steeped in blood.
Abel did not mind his scowl, for now that his own
heart was at rest he could feel unalloyed pity for his
friend. He stepped over, meaning to comfort him,
and held out his hand, saying :

" It was my chance, old lad. Don't grudge it me.
I'll try to make Sarah a happy woman, and you shall
be a brother to us both ! "

"Brother be damned!" was all the answer Eric
made, as he turned away. When he had gone a few
steps down the rocky path he turned and came back.
Standing before Abel and Sarah, who had their arms
round each other, he said :

" You have a year. Make the most of it ! And be

THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA 105

sure you're in time to claim your wife ! Be back to
have your banns up in time to be married on the nth
April. If you're not, I tell you I shall have my banns
up, and you may get back too late."

" What do you mean, Eric ? You are mad ! "

"No more mad than you are, Abel Behenna. You
go, that's your chance ! I stay, that's mine ! I don't
mean to let the grass grow under my feet. Sarah
cared no more for you than for me five minutes ago,
and she may come back to that five minutes after
you're gone ! You won by a point only — the game
may change."

" The game won't change ! " said Abel shortly.
"Sarah, you'll be true to me? You won't marry till I
return ? "

"For a year!" added Eric, quickly, "that's the
bargain."

" I promise for the year," said Sarah. A dark look
came over Abel's face, and he was about to speak,
but he mastered himself and smiled.

" I mustn't be too hard or get angry to-night !
Come, Eric ! we played and fought together. I won
fairly. I played fairly all the game of our wooing !
You know that as well as I do ; and now when I am
going away, I shall look to my old and true comrade
to help me when I am gone ! "

" I'll help you none," said Eric, " so help me
God ! "

" It was God helped me," said Abel, simply.

" Then let Him go on helping you," said Eric
angrily. "The Devil is good enough for me!" and
without another word he rushed down the steep path
and disappeared behind the rocks.

io6 THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA

When he had gone Abel hoped for some tender
passage with Sarah, but the first remark she made
chilled him.

" How lonely it all seems without Eric ! " and this
note sounded till he had left her at home — and after.

Early on the next morning Abel heard a noise at
his door, and on going out saw Eric walking rapidly
away: a small canvas bag full of gold and silver
lay on the threshold ; on a small slip of paper pinned
to it was written :

"Take the money and go. I stay. God for you!
The Devil for me! Remember the nth of April. —
Eric Sanson." That afternoon Abel went off to
Bristol, and a week later sailed on the Star of the Sea
bound for Pahang. His money — including that which
had been Eric's— was on board in the shape of a
venture of cheap toys. He had been advised by a
shrewd old mariner of Bristol whom he knew, and
who knew the ways of the Chersonese, who predicted
that every penny invested would be returned with a
shilling to boot.

As the year wore on Sarah became more and more
disturbed in her mind. Eric was always at hand to
make love to her in his own persistent, masterful
manner, and to this she did not object. Only one
letter came from Abel, to say that his venture had
proved successful, and that he had sent some two
hundred pounds to the bank at Bristol, and was
trading with fifty pounds still remaining in goods
for China, whither the Star of the Sea was bound and
whence she would return to Bristol. He suggested
that Eric's share of the venture should be returned to
him with his share of the profits. This proposition

THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA 107

was treated with anger by Eric, and as simply childish
by Sarah's mother.

More than six months had since then elapsed, but no
other letter had come, and Eric's hopes which had been
dashed down by the letter from Pahang, began to rise
again. He perpetually assailed Sarah with an "if!"
If Abel did not return, would she then marry him ?
If the nth April went by without Abel being in the
port, would she give him over ? If Abel had taken
his fortune, and married another girl on the head of it,
would she marry him, Eric, as soon as the truth were
known ? And so on in an endless variety of possibil-
ities. The power of the strong will and the determined
purpose over the woman's weaker nature became in
time manifest. Sarah began to lose her faith in Abel
and to regard Eric as a possible husband ; and a
possible husband is in a woman's eye different to all
other men. A new affection for him began to arise
in her breast, and the daily familiarities of permitted
courtship furthered the growing affection. Sarah
began to regard Abel as rather a rock in the road of
her life, and had it not been for her mother's constantly
reminding her of the good fortune already laid by in
the Bristol Bank she would have tried to have shut
her eyes altogether to the fact of Abel's existence.

The nth April was Saturday, so that in order to
have the marriage on that day it would be necessary
that the banns should be called on Sunday, 22nd
March. From the beginning of that month Eric kept
perpetually on the subject of Abel's absence, and his
outspoken opinion that the latter was either dead or
married began to become a reality, to the woman's
mind. As the first half of the month wore on Eric

108 THE COMIMG OF ABEL BEHENNA

became more jubilant, and after church on the 15th
he took Sarah for a walk to the Flagstaff Rock.
There he asserted himself strongly :

" I told Abel, and you too, that if he was not here
to put up his banns in time for the eleventh, I would
put up mine for the twelfth. Now the time has come
when I mean to do it. He hasn't kept his word "—
here Sarah struck in out of her weakness and
indecision :

" He hasn't broken it yet ! " Eric ground his teeth
with anger.

"If you mean to stick up for him," he said, as he
smote his hands savagely on the flagstaff, which sent *
forth a shivering murmur, "well and good. I'll keep
my part of the bargain. On Sunday I shall give
notice of the banns, and you can deny them in the
church if you will. If Abel is in Pencastle on the
eleventh, he can have them cancelled, and his own
put up ; but till then, I take my course, and woe to
anyone who stands in my way ! " With that he flung
himself down the rocky pathway, and Sarah could not
but admire his Viking strength and spirit, as, crossing
the hill, he strode away along the cliffs towards
Bude.

During the week no news was heard of Abel, and
on Saturday Eric gave notice of the banns of marriage
between himself and Sarah Trefusis. The clergyman
would have remonstrated with him, for although
nothing formal had been told to the neighbours, it had
been understood since Abel's departure that on his
return he was to marry Sarah ; but Eric would not
discuss the question.

" It is a painful subject, sir," he said with a firmness

THE COMIMG OF ABEL BEHENNA 109

which the parson, who was a very young man, could
not but be swayed by. "Surely there is nothing
against Sarah or me. Why should there be any bones
made about the matter?" The parson said no more,
and on the next day he read out the banns for the
first time amidst an audible buzz from the congrega-
tion. Sarah was present, contrary to custom, and
though she blushed furiously enjoyed her triumph
over the other girls whose banns had not yet come.
Before the week was over she began to make her
wedding dress. Eric used to come and look at her at
work and the sight thrilled through him. He used to
say all sorts of pretty things to her at such times,
and there were to both delicious moments of love-
making.

The banns were read a second time on the 29th,
and Eric's hope grew more and more fixed,
though there were to him moments of acute
despair when he realised that the cup of happi-
ness might be dashed from his lips at any
moment, right up to the last. At such times he was
full of passion — desperate and remorseless — and he
ground his teeth and clenched his hands in a wild way
as though some taint of the old Berserker fury of his
ancestors still lingered in his blood. On the Thurs-
day of that week he looked in on Sarah and found
her, amid a flood of sunshine, putting finishing touches
to her white wedding gown. His own heart was full
of gaiety, and the sight of the woman who was so
soon to be his own so occupied, filled him with a joy
unspeakable, and he felt faint with a languorous ecstasy.
Bending over he kissed Sarah on the mouth, and then
whispered in her rosy ear —

no THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA

" Your wedding dress, Sarah ! And for me ! " As
he drew back to admire her she looked up saucily, and
said to him —

"Perhaps not for you. There is more than a week
yet for Abel ! " and then cried out in dismay, for with
a wild gesture and a fierce oath Eric dashed out of the
house, banging the door behind him. The incident
disturbed Sarah more than she could have thought
possible, for it awoke all her fears and doubts and
indecision afresh. She cried a little, and put by her
dress, and to soothe herself went out to sit for a while
on the summit of the Flagstaff Rock. When she
arrived she found there a little group anxiously dis-
cussing the weather. The sea was calm and the sun
bright, but across the sea were strange lines of dark-
ness and light, and close in to shore the rocks were
fringed with foam, which spread out in great white
curves and circles as the currents drifted. The wind
had backed, and came in sharp, cold puffs. The
blowhole, which ran under the Flagstaff Rock, from
the rocky bay without to the harbour within, was
booming at intervals, and the seagulls were screaming
ceaselessly as they wheeled about the entrance of the
port.

"It looks bad," she heard an old fisherman say to
the coastguard. " I seen it just like this once before,
when the East Indiaman Coromandel went to pieces
in Dizzard Bay ! " Sarah did not wait to hear more.
She was of a timid nature where danger was con-
cerned, and could not bear to hear of wrecks and
disasters. She went home and resumed the com
pletion of her dress, secretly determined to appease
Eric when she should meet him with a sweet apology

THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA ill

—and to take the earliest opportunity of being even
with him after her marriage.

The old fisherman's weather prophecy was justified.
That night at dusk a wild storm came on. The sea
rose and lashed the western coasts from Skye to
Scilly and left a tale of disaster everywhere. The
sailors and fishermen of Pencastle all turned out on
the rocks and cliffs and watched eagerly. Presently,
by a flash of lightning, a "ketch " was seen drifting
under only a jib about half-a-mile outside the port.
All eyes and all glasses were concentrated on her,
waiting for the next flash, and when it came a chorus
went up that it was the Lovely Alice, trading between
Bristol and Penzance, and touching at all the little
ports between. " God help them ! " said the harbour-
master, "for nothing in this world can save them
when they are between Bude and Tintagel and the
wind on shore ! " The coastguards exerted them-
selves, and, aided by brave hearts and willing hands,
they brought the rocket apparatus up on the summit
of the Flagstaff Rock. Then they burned blue
lights so that those on board might see the harbour
opening in case they could make any effort to reach
it. They worked gallantly enough on board ; but no
skill or strength of man could avail. Before many
minutes were over the Lovely Alice rushed to her
doom on the great island rock that guarded the
mouth of the port. The screams of those on board
were fairly borne on the tempest as they flung them-
selves into the sea in a last chance for life. The blue
lights were kept burning, and eager eyes peered into
the depths of the waters in case any face could be
seen ; and ropes were held ready to fling out in aid.

ii2 THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA

But never a face was seen, and the willing arms rested
idle. Eric was there amongst his fellows. His old
Icelandic origin was never more apparent than in that
wild hour. He took a rope, and shouted in the ear of
the harbour-master :

" I shall go down on the rock over the seal cave.
The tide is running up, and some one may drift in
there ! "

" Keep back, man ! " came the answer. " Are you
mad ? One slip on that rock and you are lost : and
no man could keep his feet in the dark on such a
place in such a tempest ! "

" Not a bit," came the reply. " You remember how
Abel Behenna saved me there on a night like this
when my boat went on the Gull Rock. He dragged
me up from the deep water in the seal cave, and now
someone may drift in there again as I did," and he
was gone into the darkness. The projecting rock
hid the light on the Flagstaff Rock, but he knew his
way too well to miss it. His boldness and sureness
of foot standing to him, he shortly stood on the great
round-topped rock cut away beneath by the action of
the waves over the entrance of the seal cave, where
the water was fathomless. There he stood in com-
parative safety, for the concave shape of the rock beat
back the waves with their own force, and though the
water below him seemed to boil like a seething
cauldron, just beyond the spot there was a space of
almost calm. The rock, too, seemed here to shut off
the sound of the gale, and he listened as well as
watched. As he stood there ready, with his coil of
rope poised to throw, he thought he heard below him,
just beyond the whirl of the water, a faint, despairing

THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA 113

cry. He echoed it with a shout that rang out into the
night. Then he waited for the flash of lightning,
and as it passed flung his rope out into the darkness
where he had seen a face rising through the swirl of
the foam. The rope was caught, for he felt a pull on
it, and he shouted again in his mighty voice :

" Tie it round your waist, and I shall pull you up."
Then when he felt that it wis fast he moved along the
rock to the far side of the sea cave, where the deep
water was something stiller, and where he could get
foothold secure enough to drag the rescued man on
the overhanging rock. He began to pull, and shortly
he knew from the rope taken in that the man he was
now rescuing must soon be close to the top of the
rock. He steadied himself for a moment, and drew
a long breath, that he might at the next effort com-
plete the rescue. He had just bent his back to the
work when a flash of lightning revealed to each
other the two men — the rescuer and the rescued.

Eric Sanson and Abel Behenna were face to face —
and none knew of the meeting save themselves ; and
God.

On the instant a wave of passion swept through
Eric's heart. All his hopes were shattered, and with
the hatred of Cain his eyes looked out. He saw in
the instant of recognition the joy in Abel's face that
his was the hand to succour him, and this intensified
his hate. Whilst the passion was on him he started
back, and the rope ran out between his hands. His
moment of hate was followed by an impulse of his
better manhood, but it was too late.

Before he could recover himself, Abel encumbered
with the rope that should have aided him, was

8

ii4 THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA

plunged with a despairing- cry back into the darkness
of the devouring sea.

Then, feeling all the madness and the doom of
Cain upon him, Eric rushed back over the rocks,
heedless of the danger and eager only for one thing —
to be amongst other people whose living noises would
shut out that last cry which seemed to ring still in his
ears. When he regained the Flagstaff Rock the men
surrounded him, and through the fury of the storm he
heard the harbour-master say : —

" We feared you were lost when we heard a cry !
How white you are ! Where is your rope ? Was
there anyone drifted in ?"

" No one," he shouted in answer, for he felt that he
could never explain that he had let his old comrade
slip back into the sea, and at the very place and
under the very circumstances in which that comrade
had saved his own life. He hoped by one bold lie
to set the matter at rest for ever. There was no one
to bear witness — and if he should have to carry that
still white face in his eyes and that despairing cry in
his ears for evermore — at least none should know of
it. " No one," he cried, more loudly still. " I slipped
on the rock, and the rope fell into the sea ! " So say-
ing he left them, and, rushing down the steep path,
gained his own cottage and locked himself within.

The remainder of that night he passed lying on his
bed — dressed and motionless — staring upwards, and
seeming to see through the darkness a pale face
gleaming wet in the lightning, with its glad recognition
turning to ghastly despair, and to hear a cry which
never ceased to echo in his soul.

In the morning the storm was over and all was

THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA 115

smiling again, except that the sea was still boisterous
with its unspent fury. Great pieces of wreck drifted
into the port, and the sea around the island rock was
strewn with others. Two bodies also drifted into the
harbour—one the master of the wrecked ketch, the
other a strange seaman whom no one knew.

Sarah saw nothing of Eric till the evening, and then
he only looked in for a minute. He did not come
into the house, but simply put his head in through
the open window.

"Well, Sarah," he called out in a loud voice, though
to her it did not ring truly, " is the wedding dress
done ? Sunday week, mind ! Sunday week ! "

Sarah was glad to have the reconciliation so easy;
but, womanlike, when she saw the storm was ovef
and her own fears groundless, she at once repeated
the cause of offence.

" Sunday so be it," she said, without looking up,
" if Abel isn't there on Saturday ! " Then she looked
up saucily, though her heart was full of fear of an-
other outburst on the part of her impetuous lover.
But the window was empty ; Eric had taken himself
off, and with a pout she resumed her work. She saw
Eric no more till Sunday afternoon, after the banns
had been called "the third time, when he came up to
her before all the people with an air of proprietorship
which half-pleased and half-annoyed her.

" Not yet, mister ! " she said, pushing him away, as
the other girls giggled. "Wait till Sunday next, if
you please — the day after Saturday!" she added,
looking at him saucily. The girls giggled again, and
the young men guffawed. They thought it was the
snub that touched him so that he became as white as

n6 THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA

a sheet as he turned away. But Sarah, who knew
more than they did, laughed, for she saw triumph
through the spasm of pain that overspread his face.

The week passed uneventfully ; however, as
Saturday drew nigh Sarah had occasional moments
of anxiety, and as to Eric he went about at night-
time like a man possessed. He restrained himselt
when others were by, but now and again he went
down amongst the rocks and caves and shouted aloud.
This seemed to relieve him somewhat, and he was
better able to restrain himself for some time after. All
Saturday he stayed in his own house and never left it.
As he was to be married on the morrow, the neighbours
thought it was shyness on his part, and did not trouble
or notice him. Only once was he disturbed, and that
was when the chief boatman came to him and sat
down, and after a pause said :

"Eric, I was over in Bristol yesterday. I was in
the ropemaker's getting a coil to replace the one you
lost the night of the storm, and there I saw Michael
Heavens of this place, who is salesman there. He
told me that Abel Behenna had come home the week
ere last on the Star of the Sea from Canton, and that
he had lodged a sight of money in the Bristol Bank
in the name of Sarah Behenna. He told Michael so
himself— and that he had taken a passage on the
Lovely Alice to Pencastle. Bear up, man," for Eric
had with a groan dropped his head on his knees, with
his face between his hands. " He was your old
comrade, I know, but you couldn't help him. He
must have gone down with the rest that awful night.
I thought I'd better tell you, lest it might come some
other way, and you might keep Sarah Trefusis from

THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA 117

being frightened. They were good friends once, and
women take these things to heart. It would not do
to let her be pained with such a thing on her wedding-
day ! " Then he rose and went away, leaving Eric
still sitting disconsolately with his head on his knees.

" Poor fellow ! " murmured the chief boatman to
himself; "he takes it to heart. Well, well! right
enough ! They were true comrades once, and Abel
saved him ! "

The afternoon of that day, when the children had
left school, they strayed as usual on half-holidays
along the quay and the paths by the cliffs. Presently
some of them came running in a state of great excite-
ment to the harbour, where a few men were unload-
ing a coal ketch, and a great many were superintend-
ing the operation. One of the children called out :

" There is a porpoise in the harbour mouth ! We
saw it come through the blow hole ! It had a long
tail, and was deep under the water !"

" It was no porpoise," said another ; " it was a seal ;
but it had a long tail ! It came out of the seal cave ! "
The other children bore various testimony, but on two
points they were unanimous — it, whatever " it " was,
had come through the blow-hole deep under the
water, and had a long, thin tail — a tail so long that
they could not see the end of it. There was much
unmerciful chaffing of the children by the men on this
point, but as it was evident that they had seen some-
thing, quite a number of persons, young and old, male
and female, went along the high paths on either side
of the harbour-mouth to catch a glimpse of this new
addition to the fauna of the sea, a long-tailed porpoise
or seal. The tide was now coming in. There was a

n8 THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA

slight breeze, and the surface of the water was rippled
so that it was only at moments that anyone could see
clearly into the deep water. After a spell of watching
a woman called out that she saw something moving
up the channel, just below where she was standing.
There was a stampede to the spot, but by the time the
crowd had gathered the breeze had freshened, and it
was impossible to see with any distinctness below the
surface of the water. On being questioned the woman
described what she had seen, but in such an incoherent
way that the whole thing was put down as an effect of
imagination ; had it not been for the children's report
she would not have been credited at all. Her semi-
hysterical statement that what she saw was " like a
pig with the entrails out" was only thought anything
of by an old coastguard, who shook his head but did
not make any remark. For the remainder of the
daylight this man was seen always on the bank, look-
ing into the water, but always with disappointment
manifest on his face.

Eric arose early on the.next morning — he had not
slept all night, and it was a relief to him to move
about in the light. He shaved himself with a hand
that did not tremble, and dressed himself in his
wedding clothes. There was a haggard look on his
face, and he seemed as though he had grown years
older in the last few days. Still there was a wild,
uneasy light of triumph in his eyes, and he kept
murmuring to himself over and over again :

"This is my wedding-day! Abel cannot claim her
now — living or dead ! — living or dead ! Living or
dead ! " He sat in his arm-chair, waiting with an
uncanny quietness for the church hour to arrive.

THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA 119

When the bell began to ring he arose and passed out
of his house, closing the door behind him. He looked
at the river and saw that the tide had just turned.
In the church he sat with Sarah and her mother,
holding Sarah's hand tightly in his all the time, as
though he feared to lose her, When the service was
over they stood up together, and were married in the
presence of the entire congregation ; for no one left
the church. Both made the responses clearly — Eric's
being even on the defiant side. When the wedding
was over Sarah took her husband's arm, and they
walked away together, the boys and younger girls
being cuffed by their elders into a decorous behaviour,
for they would fain have followed close behind their
heels.

The way from the church led down to the back of
Eric's cottage, a narrow passage being between it and
that of his next neighbour. When the bridal couple
had passed through this the remainder of the
congregation, who had followed them at a little
distance, were startled by a long, shrill scream from
the bride. They rushed through the passage and
found her on the bank with wild eyes, pointing to
the river bed opposite Eric Sanson's door.

The falling tide had deposited there the body of
Abel Behenna stark upon the broken rocks. The
rope trailing from its waist had been twisted by the
current round the mooring post, and had held it back
whilst the tide had ebbed away from it. The right
elbow had fallen in a chink in the rock, leaving the
hand outstretched toward Sarah, with the open palm
upward as though it were extended to receive hers,
the pale drooping fingers open to the clasp.

120 THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA

All that happened afterwards was never quite
known to Sarah Sanson. Whenever she would try
to recollect there would come a buzzing in her ears
and a dimness in her eyes, and all would pass away.
The only thing that she could remember of it at all—
and this she never forgot — was Eric's breathing
heavily, with his face whiter than that of the dead
man, as he muttered under his breath :

" Devil's help ! Devil's faith ! Devil's price ! "

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

Leaving Paris by the Qrleans road, cress the
Enceinte, and, turning to the right, you find yourself
in a somewhat wild and not at aIl*savoury district.
Right and left, before and behind, on every side rise
great heaps of dust and waste accumulated by the
process of time.

Paris has its night as well as its day life, and the
sojourner who enters his hotel in the Rue de Rivoli or
the Rue St. Honore late at night or leaves it early in
the morning, can guess, in coming near Montrouge —
if he has not done so already — the purpose of those
great waggons that look like boilers on wheels which
he finds halting everywhere as he passes.

Every city has its peculiar institutions created out
of its own needs ; and one of the most notable in-
stitutions of Paris f is its rag-picking population. In
the early morning — and Parisian life commences at
an early hour — may be seen in most streets standing
on the pathway opposite every court and alley and
between every few houses, as still in some American
cities, even in parts of New York, large wooden boxes
into which the domestics or tenement-holders empty
the accumulated dust of the past day. Round these
boxes gather and pass on, when the work is done, to
fresh fields of labour and pastures new, squalid,

122 THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

hungry-looking men and women, the implements of
whose craft consist of a coarse bag or basket slung
over the shoulder and a little rake with which they
turn over and probe and examine in the minutest
manner the dustbins. They pick up and deposit in
their baskets, by aid of their rakes, whatever they
may find, with the same facility as a Chinaman uses
his chopsticks.

Paris is a city of centralisation — and centralisation
and classification are closely allied. In the early
times, when centralisation is becoming a fact, its
forerunner is classification. All things which are
similar or analogous become grouped together, and
from the grouping of groups rises one whole or
central point. We see radiating many long arms
with innumerable tentaculse, and in the centre rises a
gigantic head with a comprehensive brain and keen
eyes to look on every side and ears sensitive to hear —
and a voracious mouth to swallow.

Other cities resemble all the birds and beasts and
fishes whose appetites and digestions are normal.
Paris alone is the analogical apotheosis of the octopus.
Product of centralisation carried to an ad absurdum,
it fairly represents the devil fish ; and in no respects
is the resemblance more curious than in the similarity
of the digestive apparatus.

Those intelligent tourists who, having surrendered
their individuality into the hands of Messrs. Cook or
Gaze, " do " Paris in three days, are often puzzled to
know how it is that the dinner which in London
would cost about six shillings, can be had for three
francs in a cafe in the Palais Royal. They need have
no more wonder if they will but consider the classi-

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS 123

fication which is a theoretic speciality of Parisian life,
and adopt all round the fact from which the
chiffonier has his genesis.

The Paris of 1850 was not like the Paris of to-day,
and those who see the Paris of Napoleon and Baron
Hausseman can hardly realise the existence of the
state of things forty-five years ago.

Amongst other things, however, which have not
changed are those districts where the waste is
gathered. Dust is dust all the world over, in every
age, and the family likeness of dust-heaps is perfect.
The traveller, therefore, who- visits the environs of
Montronge can go back in fancy without difficulty to
the year 1850.

In this year I was making a prolonged stay in
Paris. I was very much in love with a young lady
who, though she returned my passion, so far yielded
to the wishes of her parents that she had promised not
to see me or to correspond with me for a year. I, too,
had been compelled to accede to these conditions
under a vague hope of parental approval. During the
term of probation I had promised to remain out of
the country and not to write to my dear one until the
expiration of the year.

Naturally the time went heavily with me. There
was no one of my own family or circle who could tell
me of Alice, and none of her own folk had, I am
sorry to say, sufficient generosity to send me even an
occasional word of comfort regarding her health and
well-being. I spent six months wandering about
Europe, but as I could find no satisfactory distraction
in travel, I determined to come to Paris, where, at
least, I would be within easy hail of London in case

124 THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

any good fortune should call me thither before the
appointed time. That " hope deferred maketh the
heart sick " was never better exemplified than in my
case, for in addition to the perpetual longing to see
the face I loved there was always with me a harrowing
anxiety lest some accident should prevent me showing
Alice in due time that I had, throughout the long
period of probation, been faithful to her trust and my
own love. Thus, every adventure which I undertook
had a fierce pleasure of its own, for it was fraught
with possible consequences greater than it would have
ordinarily borne.

Like all travellers I exhausted the places of most
interest in the first month of my stay, and was driven
in the second month to look for amusement whither-
soever I might. Having made sundry journeys to
the better-known suburbs, I began to see that there
was a terra incognita, in so far as the guide book was
concerned, in the social wilderness lying between
these attractive points. Accordingly I began to
systematise my researches, and each day took up the
thread of my exploration at the place where I had on
the previous day dropped it.

In process of time my wanderings led me near
Montrouge, and I saw that hereabouts lay the Ultima
Thule of social exploration — a country as little known
as that round the source of the White Nile. And
so I determined to investigate philosophically the
chiffonier — his habitat, his life, and his means of life.

The job was an unsavoury one, difficult of accom-
plishment, and with little hope of adequate reward.
However, despite reason, obstinacy prevailed, and I
entered into my new investigation with a keener

THE BURIAL OF THE* RATS 125

energy than I could have summoned to aid me in
any investigation leading to any end, valuable or
worthy.

One day, late in a fine afternoon, toward the end oi
September, I entered the holy of holies of the city of
dust. The place was evidently the recognised abode
of a number of chiffoniers, for some sort of arrange-
ment was manifested in the formation 'of the dust
heaps near the road. I passed amongst these heaps,
which stood like orderly sentries, determined to pene-
trate further and trace dust to its ultimate location.

As I passed along I saw behind the dust heaps a
few forms that flitted to and fro, evidently watching
with interest the advent of any stranger to such a
place. The district was like a small Switzerland, and
as I went forward my tortuous course shut out the
path behind me.

Presently I got into what seemed a small city or
community of chiffoniers. There were a number of
shanties or huts, such as may be met with in the
remote parts of the Bog of Allan — rude places with
wattled walls, plastered with mud and roofs of rude
thatch made from stable refuse — such places as one
would not like to enter for any consideration, and
which even in water-colour could only look picturesque
if judiciously treated. In the midst of these huts was
one of the strangest adaptations — I cannot say habita-
tions— I had ever seen. An immense old wardrobe,
the colossal remnant of some boudoir of Charles VII,
or Henry II., had been converted into a dwelling-
house. The double doors lay open, so that the entire
menage was open to public view. In the open half of
the wardrobe was a common sitting-room of some four

126 THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

feet by six, In which sat, smoking their pipes round a
charcoal brazier, no fewer than six old soldiers of the
First Republic, with their uniforms torn and worn
threadbare. Evidently they were of the mauvais
snjet class ; their blear eyes and limp jaws told
plainly of a common love of absinthe ; and their eyes
had that haggard, worn look which stamps the
drunkard at his worst, and that look of slumbering
ferocity which follows hard in the wake of drink.
The other side stood as of old, with its shelves intact,
save that they were cut to half their depth, and in each
shelf of which there were six, was a bed made with
rags and straw. The half-dozen of worthies who
inhabited this structure looked at me curiously as I
passed ; and when I looked back after going a little
way I saw their heads together in a whispered con-
ference. I did not like the look of this at all, for the
p!ace was very lonely, and the men looked very, very
villainous. However, I did not see any cause for fear,
and went on my way, penetrating further and further
into the Sahara. The way was tortuous to a degree,
and from going round in a series of semi-circles, as
one goes in skating with the Dutch roll, I got
rather confused with regard to the points of the
compass.

When I had penetrated a little way I saw, as I
turned the corner of a half-made heap, sitting on a
heap of straw an old soldier with threadbare coat.

" Hallo ! " said I to myself; " the First Republic is
well represented here in its soldiery."

As I passed him the old man never even looked up
at me, but gazed on the ground with stolid persistency.
Again I remarked to myself: "See what a life of rude

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS 127

warfare can do ! This old man's curiosity is a thing
of the past."

When I had gone a few steps, however, I looked
back suddenly, and saw that curiosity was not dead,
for the veteran had raised his head and was regarding
me with a very queer expression. He seemed to me
to look very like one of the six worthies in the press.
When he saw me looking he dropped his head ; and
without thinking further of him I went on my way,
satisfied that there was a strange likeness between
these old warriors. f

Presently I met another old soldier in a similar
manner. He, too, did not -notice me whilst I was
passing.

By this time it was getting late in the afternoon,
and I began to think of retracing my steps. Accord-
ingly I turned to go back, but could see a number of
tracks leading between different mounds and could
not ascertain which of them I should take. In my
perplexity I wanted to see someone of whom to ask
the way, but could see no one. I determined to go
on a few mounds further and so try to see someone —
not a veteran.

I gained my object, for after going a couple of
hundred yards I saw before me a single shanty such
as I had seen before— with, however, the difference
that this was not one for living in, but merely a roof
with three walls open in front. From the evidences
which the neighbourhood exhibited I took it to be a
place for sorting. Within it was an old woman
wrinkled and bent with age ; I approached her to ask
the way.

She rose as I came close and I asked her my way.

128 THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

She immediately commenced a conversation ; and it
occurred to me that here in the very centre of the
Kingdom of Dust was the place to gather details of
the history of Parisian rag-picking — particularly as I
could do so from the lips of one who looked like the
oldest inhabitant.

I began my inquiries, and the old woman gave me
most interesting answers — she had been one of the
ceteuces who sat daily before the guillotine and had
taken an active part among the women who signalised
themselves by their violence in the revolution. While
we were talking she said suddenly: "But m'sieur
must be tired standing" and dusted a rickety old stool
for me to sit down. I hardly liked to do so for many
reasons ; but the poor old woman was so civil that I
did not like to run the risk of hurting her by refusing,
and moreover the conversation of one who had been
at the taking of the Bastille was so interesting that I
sat down and so our conversation went on.

While we were talking an old man — older and
more bent and wrinkled even than the woman — ap-
peared from behind the shanty. " Here is Pierre,"
said she. " M'sieur can hear stories now if he wishes,
for Pierre was in everything, from the Bastille to
Waterloo." The old man took another stool at my
request and we plunged into a sea of revolutionary
reminiscences. This old man, albeit clothed like a
scare-crow, was like any one of the six veterans.

I was now sitting in the centre of the low hut with
the woman on my left hand and the man on my right,
each of them being somewhat in front of me. The
place was full of all sorts of curious objects of lumber,
and of many things that 1 wished far away. In one

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS 129

corner was a heap of rags which seemed to move from
the number of vermin it contained, and in the other a
heap of bones whose odour was something shocking.
Every now and then, glancing at the heaps, I could
see the gleaming eyes of some of the rats which in-
fested the place. These loathsome objects were bad
enough, but what looked even more dreadful was an
old butcher's axe with an iron handle stained with
clots of blood leaning up against the wall on the right
hand side. Still these things did not give me much
concern. The talk of the two old people was so
fascinating that I stayed on and on, till the evening
came and the dust heaps threw dark shadows over the
vales between them.

After a time I began to grow uneasy, I could not
tell how or why, but somehow I did not feel satisfied.
Uneasiness is an instinct and means warning. The
psychic faculties are often the sentries of the intellect ;
and when they sound alarm the reason begins to act,
although perhaps not consciously.

This was so with me. I began to bethink me
where I was and by what surrounded, and to wonder
how I should fare in case I should be attacked ; and
then the thought suddenly burst upon me, although
without any overt cause, that I was in danger.
Prudence whispered : " Be still and make no sign,"
and so I was still and made no sign, for I knew that
four cunning eyes were on me. " Four eyes — if not
more." My God, what a horrible thought! The
whole shanty might be surrounded on three sides with
villains ! I might be in the midst of a band of such
desperadoes as only half a century of periodic
revolution can produce.

9

i3o THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

With a sense of danger my intellect and observation
quickened, and I grew more watchful than was my
wont. I noticed that the old woman's eyes were
constantly wandering toward my hands. I looked at
them too, and saw the cause — my rings. On my left
little finger I had a large signet and on the right a
good diamond,

I thought that if there was any danger my first care
was to avert suspicion. Accordingly I began to work
the conversation round to rag-picking — to the drains
— of the things found there ; and so by easy stages to
jewels. Then, seizing a favourable opportunity, I
asked the old woman if she knew anything of such
things. She answered that she did, a little. I held
out my right hand, and, showing her the diamond,
asked her what she thought of that She answered
that her eyes were bad, and stooped over my hand. I
said as nonchalantly as I could : " Pardon me ! You
will see better thus ! " and taking it off handed it to
her. An unholy light came into her withered old
face, as she touched it. She stole one glance at me
swift and keen as a flash of lightning.

She bent over the ring for a moment, her face quite
concealed as though examining it. The old man
looked straight out of the front of the shanty before
him, at the same time fumbling in his pockets and
producing a screw of tobacco in a paper and a pipe,
which he proceeded to fill. I took advantage of the
pause and the momentary rest from the searching eyes
on my face to look carefully round the place, now dim
and shadowy in the gloaming. There still lay all the
heaps of varied reeking foulness ; there the terrible
blood-stained axe leaning against the wall in the right

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS 131

hand corner, and everywhere, despite the gloom, the
baleful glitter of the eyes of the rats. I could see
them even through some of the chinks of the boards
at the back low down close to the ground. But stay !
these latter eyes seemed more than usually large and
bright and baleful 1

For an instant my heart stood still, and I felt in
that whirling condition of mind in which one feels a
sort of spiritual drunkenness, and as though the body
is only maintained erect in that there is no time for it
to fall before recovery. Then, in another second, I
was calm — coldly calm, with all my energies in full
vigour, with a self-control which I felt to be perfect
and with all my feeling and instincts alert.

Now I knew the full extent of my danger: I was
watched and surrounded by desperate people! I
could not even guess at how many of them were lying
there on the ground behind the shanty, waiting for
the moment to strike. I knew that I was big and
strong, and they knew it, too. They knew also, as I
did, that I was an Englishman and would make a
fight for it ; and so we waited. I had, I felt, gained
an advantage in the last few seconds, for I knew my
danger and understood the situation. Now, I thought,
is the test of my courage — the enduring test: the
fighting test may come later!

The old woman raised her head and said to me in
a satisfied kind of way :

"A very fine ring, indeed — a beautiful ring! Oh,
me! I once had such rings, plenty of them, and
bracelets and earrings! Oh! for in those fine days I
led the town a dance i But they've forgotten me
now ! They've forgotten me ! They ? Why they

i3a THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

never heard of me! Perhaps their grandfathers re-
member me, some of them ! " and she laughed a harsh,
croaking laugh. And then I am bound to say that
she astonished me, for she handed me back the ring
with a certain suggestion of old-fashioned grace which
was not without its pathos.

The old man eyed her with a sort of sudden ferocity,
half rising from his stool, and said to me suddenly
and hoarsely :

"Let me see !"

I was about to hand the ring when the old woman
said :

" No ! no, do not give it to Pierre ! Pierre is
eccentric. He loses things ; and such a pretty ring ! "

" Cat ! " said the old man, savagely. Suddenly the
old woman said, rather more loudly than was
necessary :

"Wait! I shall tell you something about a ring."
There was something in the sound of her voice that
jarred upon me. Perhaps it was my hyper-sensitive-
ness, wrought up as I was to such a pitch of nervous
excitement, but I seemed to think that she was not
addressing me. As I stole a glance round the place I
saw the eyes of the rats in the bone heaps, but missed
the eyes along the back. But even as I looked I saw
them again appear. The old woman's " Wait ! " had
given me a respite from attack, and the men had sunk
back to their reclining posture.

" I once lost a ring— a beautiful diamond hoop that
had belonged to a queen, and which was given to me
by a farmer of the taxes, who afterwards cut his
throat because I sent him away. I thought it must
have been stolen, and taxed my people ; but I could

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS 133

get no trace. The police came and suggested that it
had found its way to the drain. We descended — I in
my fine clothes, for I would not trust them with my
beautiful ring ! I know more of the drains since then,
and of rats, too ! but I shall never forget the horror of
that place — alive with blazing eyes, a wall of them
just outside the light of our torches. Well, we got
beneath my house. We searched the outlet of the
drain, and there in the filth found my ring, and we
came out.

" But we found something else also before we came !
As we were coming toward the. opening a lot of sewer
rats — human ones this time— came toward us. They
told the police that one of their number had gone into
the drain, but had not returned. He had gone in only
shortly before we had, and, if lost, could hardly be far
off. They asked help to seek him, so we turned back.
They tried to prevent me going, but I insisted. It
was a new excitement, and had I not recovered my
ring ? Not far did we go till we came on something.
There was but little water, and the bottom of the drain
was raised with brick, rubbish, and much matter of the
kind. He had made a fight for it, even when his
torch had gone out. But they were too many for
him ! They had not been long about it ! The bones
were still warm ; but they were picked clean. They
had even eaten their own dead ones and there were
bones of rats as well as of the man. They took it cool
enough those other — the human ones — and joked of
their comrade when they found him dead, though they
would have helped him living. Bah ! what matters it
— life or death?"

" And had you no fear ? " I asked her.

i34 THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

" Fear ! " she said with a laugh. " Me have fear ?
Ask Pierre ! But I was younger then, and, as I came
through that horrible drain with its wall of greedy
eyes, always moving with the circle of the light from
the torches, I did not feel easy. I kept on before the
men, though ! It is a way I have ! I never let the
men get it before me. All I want is a chance and a
means ! And they ate him up— took every trace
away except the bones ; and no one knew it, nor no
sound of him was ever heard ! " Here she broke into
a chuckling fit of the ghastliest merriment which it
was ever my lot to hear and see. A great poetess
describes her heroine singing : " Oh ! to see or hear
her singing ! Scarce I know which is the divinest."

And I can apply the same idea to the old crone —
in all save the divinity, for I scarce could tell which
was the most hellish — the harsh, malicious, satisfied,
cruel laugh, or the leering grin, and the horrible
square opening of the mouth like a tragic mask, and
the yellow gleam of the few discoloured teeth in the
shapeless gums. In that laugh and with that grin
and the chuckling satisfaction I knew as well as if it
had been spoken to me in words of thunder that my
murder was settled, and the murderers only bided the
proper time for its accomplishment. I could read
between the lines of her gruesome story the commands
to her accomplices. " Wait," she seemed to say,
" bide your time. I shall strike the first blow. Find
the weapon for me, and I shall make the opportunity !
He shall not escape ! Keep him quiet, and then no
one will be wiser. There will be no outcry, and the
rats will do their work ! "

It was growing darker and darker ; the night was

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS 135

coming. I stole a glance round the shanty, still all
the same ! The bloody axe in the corner, the heaps
of filth, and the eyes on the bone heaps and in the
crannies of the floor.

Pierre had been still ostensibly filling his pipe ; he
now struck a light and began to puff away at it The
old woman said :

" Dear heart, how dark it is ! Pierre, like a good
lad, light the lamp ! "

Pierre got up and with the lighted match in his
hand touched the wick of a lamp which hung at one
side of the entrance to the shanty, and which had a
reflector that threw the light' all over the place. It
was evidently that which was used for their sorting at
night

" Not that, stupid ! Not that ! The lantern ! " she
called out to him.

He immediately blew it out, saying: "All right,
mother, I'll find it," and he hustled about the left
corner of the room — the old woman saying through
the darkness :

" The lantern ! the lantern ! Oh ! That is the
light that is most useful to us poor folks. The
lantern was the friend of the revolution ! It is the
friend of the 'chiffonier! It helps us when all else
fails."

Hardly had she said the word when there was a
kind of creaking of the whole place, and something
was steadily dragged over the roof.

Again I seemed to read between the lines of her
words. I knew the lesson of the lantern.

" One of you get on the roof with a noose and
strangle him as he passes out if we fail within."

136 THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

As I looked out of the opening I saw the loop of a
rope outlined black against the lurid sky. I was
now, indeed, beset !

Pierre was not long in finding the lantern. I kept
■ my eyes fixed through the darkness on the old
woman. Pierre struck his light, and by its flash I
saw the old woman raise from the ground beside her
where it had mysteriously appeared, and then hide in
the folds of her gown, a long sharp knife or dagger.
It seemed to be like a butcher's sharpening iron fined
to a keen point.

The lantern was lit.

" Bring it here, Pierre," she said. " Place it in the
doorway where we can see it. See how nice it is ! It
shuts out the darkness from us ; it is just right ! "

Just right for her and her purposes ! It threw all
its light on my face, leaving in gloom the faces of
both Pierre and the woman, who sat outside of me on
each side.

I felt that the time of action was approaching ; but
I knew now that the first signal and movement would
come from the woman, and so watched her.

I was all unarmed, but I had made up my mind
what to do. At the first movement I would seize the
butcher's axe in the right-hand corner and fight my
way out. At least, I would die hard. I stole a
glance round to fix its exact locality so that I could
not fail to seize it at the first effort, for then, if ever,
time and accuracy would be precious.

Good God i It was gone 1 All the horror of the
situation burst upon me ; but the bitterest thought of
all was that if the issue of the terrible position should
be against me Alice would infallibly suffer. Either

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS 137

she would believe me false — and any lover, or any one
who has ever been one, can imagine the bitterness of
the thought — or else she would go on loving long-
after I had been lost to her and to the world, so
that her life would be broken and embittered,
shattered with disappointment and despair. The
very magnitude of the pain braced me up and nerved
me to bear the dread scrutiny of the plotters.

I think I did not betray myself. The old woman
was watching me as a cat does a mouse ; she had her
right hand hidden in the folds of her gown, clutching,
I knew, that long, cruel-looking dagger. Had she
seen any disappointment in my face she would, I felt,
have known that the moment had come, and would
have sprung on me like a tigress, certain of taking me
unprepared.

I looked out into the night, and there I saw new
cause for danger. Before and around the hut were at
a little distance some shadow)'- forms ; they were
quite still, but I knew that they were all alert and on
guard. Small chance for me now in that direction.

Again I stole a glance round the place. In moments
of great excitement and of great danger, which is
excitement, the mind works very quickly, and the
keenness of the faculties which depend on the mind
grows in proportion. I now felt this. In an instant
I took in the whole situation. I saw that the axe
had been taken through a small hole made in one of
the rotten boards. How rotten they must be to allow
of such a thing being done without a particle of noise.

The hut was a regular murder-trap, and was
guarded all around. A garroter lay on the roof
ready to entangle me with his noose if I should

138 THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

escape the dagger of the old hag. In front the way
was guarded by I know not how many watchers. And
at the back was a row of desperate men — I had seen
their eyes still through the crack in the boards of the
floor, when last I looked— as they lay prone waiting
for the signal to start erect. If it was to be ever, now
for it !

As nonchalantly as I could I turned slightly on my
stool so as to get my right leg well under me. Then
with a sudden jump, turning my head, and guarding
it with my hands, and with the fighting instinct of
the knights of old, I breathed my lady's name, and
hurled myself against the back wall of the hut.

Watchful as they were, the suddenness of my move-
ment surprised both Pierre and the old woman. As
I crashed through the rotten timbers I saw the old
woman rise with a leap like a tiger and heard her low
gasp of baffled rage. My feet lit on something that
moved, and as I jumped away I knew that I had
stepped on the back of one of the row of men lying
on their faces outside the hut I was torn with nails
and splinters, but otherwise unhurt. Breathless I
rushed up the mound in front of me, hearing as I
went the dull crash of the shanty as it collapsed into
a mass.

It was a nightmare climb. The mound, though but
low, was awfully steep, and with each step I took the
mass of dust and cinders tore down with me and gave
way under my feet. The dust rose and choked me ;
it was sickening, fcetid, awful ; but my climb was, I
felt, for life or death, and I struggled on. The
seconds seemed hours ; but the few moments I had in
starting, combined with my youth and strength, gave

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS 139

me a great advantage, and, though several forms
struggled after me in deadly silence which was more
dreadful than any sound, I easily reached the top.
Since then I have climbed the cone of Vesuvius, and
as I struggled up that dreary steep amid the
sulphurous fumes the memory of that awful night
at Montrouge came back to me so vividly that I
almost grew faint.

The mound was one of the tallest in the region of
dust, and as I struggled to the top, panting for breath
and with my heart beating like a sledge-hammer, I
saw away to my left the dull red gleam of the sky,
and nearer still the flashing of lights. Thank God ! I
knew where I was now and where lay the road to
Paris !

For two or three seconds I paused and looked back.
My pursuers were still well behind me, but struggling
up resolutely, and in deadly silence. Beyond, the
shanty was a wreck — a mass of timber and moving
forms. I could see it well, for flames were already
bursting out ; the rags and straw had evidently caught
fire from the lantern. Still silence there ! Not a
sound ! These old wretches could die game, anyhow.

I had no time .for more than a passing glance, for
as I cast an eye round the mound preparatory to
making my descent I saw several dark forms rushing
round on either side to cut me off on my way. It
was now a race for life. They were trying to head
me on my way to Paris, and with the instinct of the
moment I dashed down to the right-hand side. I was
just in time, for, though I came as it seemed to me
down the steep in a few steps, the wary old men who
were watching me turned back, and one, as I rushed

i4o THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

by into the opening between the two mounds in front,
almost struck me a blow with that terrible butcher's
axe. There could surely not be two such weapons
about !

Then began a really horrible chase. I easily ran
ahead of the old men, and even when some younger
ones and a few women joined in the hunt I easily
distanced them. But I did not know the way, and I
could not even guide myself by the light in the sky,
for I was running away from it. I had heard that,
unless of conscious purpose, hunted men turn always
to the left, and so I found it now ; and so, I suppose,
knew also my pursuers, who were more animals than
men, and with cunning or instinct had found out such
secrets for themselves : for on finishing a quick spurt,
after which I intended to take a moment's breathing
space, I suddenly saw ahead of me two or three forms
swiftly passing behind a mound to the right.

I was in the spider's web now indeed ! But with
the thought of this new danger came the resource of
the hunted, and so I darted down the next turning to
the right. I continued in this direction for some
hundred yards, and then, making a turn to the left
again, felt certain that I had, at any rate, avoided the
danger of being surrounded.

But not of pursuit, for on came the rabble after me,
steady, dogged, relentless, and still in grim silence.

In the greater darkness the mounds seemed now to
be somewhat smaller than before, although — for the
night was closing — they looked bigger in proportion.
I was now well ahead of my pursuers, so I made a
dart up the mound in front.

Oh joy of joys ! I was close to the edge of this

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS 141

inferno of dustheaps. Away behind me the red light
of Paris in the sky, and towering up behind rose the
heights of Montmartre — a dim light, with here and
there brilliant points like stars.

Restored to vigour in a moment, I ran over the
few remaining mounds of decreasing size, and found
myself on the level land beyond. Even then, how-
ever, the prospect was not inviting. All before me
was dark and dismal, and I had evidently come on one
of those dank, low-lying waste places which are found
here and there in the neighbourhood of great cities.
Places of waste and desolation, where the space is
required for the ultimate agglomeration of all that is
noxious, and the ground is so poor as to create no
desire of occupancy even in the lowest squatter. With
eyes accustomed to the gloom of the evening, and
away now from the shadows of those dreadful dust-
heaps, I could see much more easily than I could a
little while ago. It might have been, o( course, that
the glare in the sky of the lights of Paris, though the
city was some miles away, was reflected here. How-
soever it was, I saw well enough to take bearings for
certainly some little distance around me.

In front was a bleak, flat waste that seemed almost
dead level, with here and there the dark shimmering
of stagnant pools. Seemingly far off on the right,
amid a small cluster of scattered lights, rose a dark
mass of Fort Montrouge, and away to the left in the
dim distance, pointed with stray gleams from cottage
windows, the lights in the sky showed the locality of
Bicetre. A moment's thought decided me to take to
the right and try to reach Montrouge. There at least
would be some sort of safety, and I might possibly

142 THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

long before come on some of the cross roads which I
knew. Somewhere, not far off, must lie the strategic
road made to connect the outlying chain of forts
circling the city.

Then I looked back. Coming over the mounds,
and outlined black against the glare of the Parisian
horizon, I saw several moving figures, and still a way
to the right several more deploying out between
me and my destination. They evidently meant to
cut me off in this direction, and so my choice became
constricted ; it lay now between going straight ahead
or turning to the left. Stooping to the ground, so as
to get the advantage of the horizon as a line of sight,
I looked carefully in this direction, but could detect
no sign of my enemies. I argued that as they had
not guarded or were not trying to guard that point,
there was evidently danger to me there already. So
I made up my mind to go straight on before me.

It was not an inviting prospect, and as I went on
the reality grew worse. The ground became soft and
oozy, and now and again gave way beneath me in a
sickening kind of way. I seemed somehow to be
going down, for I saw round me places seemingly
more elevated than where I was, and this in a place
which from a little way back seemed dead level. I
looked around, but could see none of my pursuers.
This was strange, for all along these birds of the
night had followed me through the darkness as well
as though it was broad daylight. How I blamed
myself for coming out in my light-coloured tourist
suit of tweed. The silence, and my not being able to
see my enemies, whilst I felt that they were watching
me, grew appalling, and in the hope of some one not

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS 143

of this ghastly crew hearing me I raised my voice and
shouted several times. There was not the slightest
response ; not even an echo rewarded my efforts.
For a while I stood stock still and kept my eyes in
one direction. On one of the rising places around me
I saw something dark move along, then another, and
another. This was to my left, and seemingly moving
to head me off.

I thought that again I might with my skill as a
runner elude my enemies at this game, and so with
all my speed darted forward.

Splash !

My feet had given way in a mass of slimy rubbish,
and I had fallen headlong into a reeking, stagnant
pool. The water and the mud in which my arms
sank up to the elbows was filthy and nauseous beyond
description, and in the suddeness of my fall I had
actually swallowed some of the filthy stuff, which
nearly choked me, and made me gasp for breath.
Never shall I forget the moments during which I
stood trying to recover myself almost fainting from
the foetid odour of the filthy pool, whose white mist
rose ghostlike around. Worst of all, with the acute
despair of the hunted animal when he sees the
pursuing pack closing on him, I saw before my eyes
whilst I stood helpless the dark forms of my pursuers
moving swiftly to surround me.

It is curious how our minds work on odd matters
even when the energies of thought are seemingly
concentrated on some terrible and pressing need.
I was in momentary peril of my life : my safety
depended on my action, and my choice of alternatives
coming now with almost every step I took, and yet I

144

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

could not but think of the strange dogged persistency
of these old men. Their silent resolution, their stead-
fast, grim, persistency even in such a cause com-
manded, as well as fear, even a measure of respect.
What must they have been in the vigour of their
youth. I could understand now that whirlwind rush
on the bridge of Areola, that scornful exclamation of
the Old Guard at Waterloo ! Unconscious cerebration
has its own pleasures, even at such moments; but
fortunately it does not in any way clash with the
thought from which action springs.

I realised at a glance that so far I was defeated in
my object, my enemies as yet had won. They had
succeeded in surrounding me on three sides, and were
bent on driving me off to the left-hand, where there
was already some danger for me, for they had left no
guard. I accepted the alternative — it was a case of
Hobson's choice and run. I had to keep the lower
ground, for my pursuers were on the higher places.
However, though the ooze and broken ground
impeded me my youth and training made me able to
hold my ground, and by keeping a diagonal line I
not only kept them from gaining on me but even
began to distance them. This gave me new heart
and strength, and by this time habitual training was
beginning to tell and my second wind had come.
Before me the ground rose slightly. I rushed up the
slope and found before me a waste of watery slime,
with a low dyke or bank looking black and grim
beyond. I felt that if I could but reach that dyke in
safety I could there, with solid ground under my feet
and some kind of path to guide me, find with
comparative ease a way out of my troubles. After a

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS 145

glance right and left and seeing no one near, I kept
my eyes for a few minutes to their rightful work of
aiding my feet whilst I crossed the swamp. It was
rough, hard work, but there was little danger, merely
toil ; and a short time took me to the dyke. I rushed
up the slope exulting ; but here again I met a new
shock. On either side of me rose a number of
crouching figures. From right and left they rushed
at me. Each body held a rope.

The cordon was nearly complete. I could pass on
neither side, and the end was near.

There was only one chance, and I took it. I hurled
myself across the dyke, and escaping out of the very
clutches of my foes threw myself into the stream.

At any other time I should have thought that
water foul and filthy, but now it was as welcome as
the most crystal stream to the parched traveller. It
was a highway of safety !

My pursuers rushed after me. ' Had only one of
them held the rope it would have been all up with
me, for he could have entangled me before I had time
to swim a stroke ; but the many hands holding it
embarrassed and delayed them, and when the rope
struck the water I heard the splash well behind me.
A few minutes' hard swimming took me across
the stream. Refreshed with the immersion and
encouraged by the escape,, I climbed the dyke in
comparative gaiety of spirits.

From the top I looked back. Through the dark-
ness I saw my assailants scattering up and down
along the dyke. The pursuit was evidently not
ended, and again I had to choose my course.
Beyond the dyke where I stood was a wild, swampy

i46 THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

space very similar to that which I had crossed. I
determined to shun such a place, and thought for a
moment whether I would take up or down the dyke.
I thought I heard a sound — the muffled sound of oars,
so I listened, and then shouted.

No response ; but the sound ceased. My enemies
had evidently got a boat of some kind. As they were
on the up side of me I took the down path and began
to run. As I passed to the left of where I had entered
the water I heard several splashes, soft and stealthy,
like the sound a rat makes as he plunges into the stream,
but vastly greater ; and as I looked I saw the dark
sheen of the water broken by the ripples of several
advancing heads. Some of my enemies were swimming
the stream also.

And now behind me, up the stream, the silence was
broken by the quick rattle and creak of oars ; my
enemies were in hot pursuit. I put my best leg fore-
most and ran on. After a break of a couple of minutes
I looked back, and by a gleam of light through the
ragged clouds I saw several dark forms climbing the
bank behind me. The wind had now begun to rise,
and the water beside me was ruffled and beginning to
break in tiny waves on the bank. I had to keep my
eyes pretty well on the ground before me, lest I should
stumble, for I knew that to stumble was death. After
a few minutes I looked back behind me. On the dyke
were only a few dark figures, but crossing the waste,
swampy ground were many more. What new danger
this portended I did not know — could only guess.
Then as I ran it seemed to me that my track kept ever
sloping away to the right. I looked up ahead and
saw that the river was much wider than before, and

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS 147

that the dyke on which I stood fell quite away, and
beyond it was another stream on whose near bank I
saw some of the dark forms now across the marsh. I
was on an island of some kind.

My situation was now indeed terrible, for my
enemies had hemmed me in on every side. Behind
came the quickening roll of the oars, as though my
pursuers knew that the end was close. Around me on
every side was desolation ; there was not a roof or
light, as far as I could see. Far off to the right rose
some dark mass, but what it was I knew not. For a
moment I paused to think what I should do, not for
more, for my pursuers were drawing closer. Then my
mind was made up. I slipped down the bank and
took to the water. I struck out straight ahead, so as
to gain the current by clearing the backwater of the
island for such I presume it was, when I had passed
into the stream. I waited till a cloud came driving
across the moon and leaving all in darkness. Then I
took off my hat and laid it softly on the water floating
with the stream, and a second after dived to the right
and struck out under water with all my might. I
was, I suppose half a minute under water, and when
I rose came up as softly as I could, and turning,
looked back. There went my light brown hat floating
merrily away. Close behind it came a rickety old
boat, driven furiously by a pair of oars. The moon
was still partly obscured by the drifting clouds, but
in the partial light I could see a man in the bows
holding aloft ready to strike what appeared to me to
be that same dreadful pole-axe which I had before
escaped. As I looked the boat drew closer, closer,
and the man struck savagely. The hat disappeared.

i48 THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

The man fell forward, almost out of the boat. His
comrades dragged him in but without the axe, and
then as I turned with all my energies bent on reaching
the further bank, I heard the fierce whirr of the
muttered " Sacre ! " which marked the anger of my
baffled pursuers.

That was the first sound I had heard from human
lips during all this dreadful chase, and full as it was
of menace and danger to me it was a welcome sound
for it broke that awful silence which shrouded and
appalled me. It was as though an overt sign that my
opponents were men and not ghosts, and that with
them I had, at least, the chance of a man, though but
one against many.

But now that the spell of silence was broken the
sounds came thick and fast. From boat to shore and
back from shore to boat came quick question and
answer, all in the fiercest whispers. I looked back —
a fatal thing to do — for in the instant someone caught
sight of my face, which showed white on the dark
water, and shouted. Hands pointed to me, and in a
monent or two the boat was under weigh, and
following hard after me. I had but a little way to go,
but quicker and quicker came the boat after me. A
few more strokes and I would be on the shore, but I
felt the oncoming of the boat, and expected each
second to feel the crash of an oar or other weapon on
my head. Had I not seen that dreadful axe disappear
in the water I do not think that I could have won the
shore. I heard the muttered curses of those not
rowing and the laboured breath of the rowers. With
one supreme effort for life or liberty I touched the
bank and sprang up it. There was not a single second

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS i4g

to spare, for hard behind me the boat grounded and
several dark forms sprang after me. I gained the top
of the dyke, and keeping to the left ran on again.
The boat put off and followed down the stream.
Seeing this I feared danger in this direction, and
quickly turning, ran down the dyke on the other side,
and after passing a short stretch of marshy ground
gained a wild, open fiat country and sped on.

Still behind me came on my relentless pursuers.
Far away, below me, I saw the same dark mass as
before, but now grown closer and greater. My heart
gave a great thrill of delight, for I knew that it must
be the fortress of Bic£tre, and with new courage I ran
on. I had heard that between each and all of the
protecting forts of Paris there are strategic ways, deep
sunk roads, where soldiers marching should be
sheltered from an enemy. I knew that if I could gain
this road I would be safe, but in the darkness I could
not see any sign of it, so, in blind hope of striking it,
I ran on.

Presently I came to the edge of a deep cut, and
found that down below me ran a road guarded on each
side by a ditch of water fenced on either side by a
straight, high wall.

Getting fainter and dizzier, I ran on ; the ground
got more broken — more and more still, till I staggered
and fell, and rose again, and ran on in the blind
anguish of the hunted. Again the thought of Alice
nerved me. I would not be lost and wreck her life : I
would fight and struggle for life to the bitter end.
With a great effort I caught the top of the wall. As,
scrambling like a catamount, I drew myself up, I
actually felt a hand touch the sole of my foot. I was

*5°

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

now on a sort of causeway, and before me I saw a
dim light. Blind and dizzy, I ran on, staggered, and
fell, rising, covered with dust and blood.

"Halt la!"

The words sounded like a voice from heaven. A
blaze of light seemed to enwrap me, and I shouted
with joy.

" Qui va la?" The rattle of musketry, the flash of
steel before my eyes. Instinctively I stopped, though
close behind me came a rush of my pursuers.

Another word or two, and out from a gateway
poured, as it seemed to me, a tide of red and blue, as
the guard turned out. All around seemed blazing
with light, and the flash of steel, the clink and rattle
of arms, and the loud, harsh voices of command. As
I fel! forward, utterly exhausted, a soldier caught me.
I looked back in dreadful expectation, and saw the
mass of dark forms disappearing into the night. Then
I must have fainted. When I recovered my senses I
was in the guard room. They gave me brandy, and
after a while I was able to tell them something of
what had passed. Then a commissary of police
appeared, apparently out of the empty air, as is the
way of the Parisian police officer. He listened
attentively, and then had a moment's consultation
with the officer in command. Apparently they were
agreed, for they asked me if I were ready now to come
with them.

" Where to ? " I asked, rising to go.

" Back to the dust heaps. We shall, perhaps, catch
them yet ! "

" I shall try ! " said I.

He eyed me for a moment keenly, and said suddenly:

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS 151

" Would you like to wait a while or till to-
morrow, young Englishman?" This touched me to
the quick, as, perhaps, he intended, and I jumped to
my feet.

" Come now ! " I said ; <( now ! now ! An English-
man is always ready for his duty ! "

The commissary was a good fellow, as well as a
shrewd one ; he slapped my shoulder kindly. " Brave
garcon ! " he said. " Forgive me, but I knew what
would do you most good. The guard is ready.
Come ! "

And so, passing- right through the guard room, and
through a long vaulted passage, we were out into the
night. A few of the men in front had powerful
lanterns. Through courtyards and down a sloping
way we passed out through a low archway to a sunken
road, the same that I had seen in my flight. The
order was given to get at the double, and with a quick,
springing stride, half run, half walk, the soldiers went
swiftly along. I felt my strength renewed again —
such is the difference between hunter and hunted. A
very short distance took us to a low-lying pontoon
bridge across the stream, and evidently very little
higher up than I had struck it. Some effort had
evidently been made to damage it, for the ropes had
all been cut, and one of the chains had been broken.
I heard the officer say to the commissary :

" We are just in time ! A few more minutes, and
they would have destroyed the bridge. Forward,
quicker still ! " and on we went. Again we reached a
pontoon on the winding stream; as we came up we
heard the hollow boom of the metal drums as the
efforts to destroy the bridge was again renewed. A

i52 THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

word of command was given, and several men raised
their rifles.

" Fire ! " A volley rang out. There was a muffled
cry, and the dark forms dispersed. But the evil was
done, and we saw the far end of the pontoon swing
into the stream. This was a serious delay, and it
was nearly an hour before we had renewed ropes
and restored the bridge sufficiently to allow us to
cross.

We renewed the chase. Quicker, quicker we went
towards the dust heaps.

After a time we came to a place that I knew.
There were the remains of a fire — a few smouldering
wood ashes still cast a red glow, but the bulk of the
ashes were cold. I knew the site of the hut and the
hill behind it up which I had rushed, and in the
flickering glow the eyes of the rats still shone with a
sort of phosphorescence. The commissary spoke a
word to the officer, and he cried :

" Halt ! "

The soldiers were ordered to spread around and
watch, and then we commenced to examine the ruins.
The commissary himself began to lift away the
charred boards and rubbish. These the soldiers took
and piled together. Presently he started back, then
bent down and rising beckoned me.

" See 1 " he said.

It was a gruesome sight. There lay a skeleton face
downwards, a woman by the lines— an old woman by
the coarse fibre of the bone. Between the ribs rose a
long spike-like dagger made from a butcher's sharpen-
ing knife, its keen point buried in the spine.

"You will observe," said the commissary to the

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS 153

officer and to me as he took out his note book, " that
the woman must have fallen on her dagger. The rats
are many here — see their eyes glistening among that
heap of bones — and you will also notice " — I shuddered
as he placed his hand on the skeleton — "that but
little time was lost by them, for the bones are scarcely
cold ! "

There was no other sign of any one near, living or
dead ; and so deploying again into line the soldiers
passed on. Presently we came to the hut made of
the old wardrobe. We approached In five of the
six compartments was an old man sleeping — sleeping
so soundly that even the glare of the lanterns did not
wake them. Old and grim and grizzled they looked,
with their gaunt, wrinkled, bronzed faces and their
white moustaches.

The officer called out harshly and loudly a word of
command, and in an instant each one of them was on
his feet before us and standing at "attention!"

" What do you here ? "

a We sleep," was the answer.

" Where are the other chiffoniers ? " asked the com-
missary.

" Gone to work."

" And you ? "

" We are on guard 1 "

"Peste!" laughed the officer grimly, as he looked
at the old men one after the other in the face and
added with cool deliberate cruelty, " Asleep on duty !
Is this the manner of the Old Guard ? No wonder,
then, a Waterloo! "

By the gleam of the lantern I saw the grim old
faces grow deadly pale, and almost shuddered at the

154 THE BURIAL OF THE RATS

look in the eyes of the old men as the laugh of the
soldiers echoed the grim pleasantry of the officer.

I felt in that moment that I was in some measure
avenged.

For a moment they looked as if they would throw
themselves on the taunter, but years of their life had
schooled them and they remained still.

"You are but five," said the commissary; "where
is the sixth?" The answer came with a grim
chuckle.

" He is there ! " and the speaker pointed to the
bottom of the wardrobe. " He died last night. You
won't find much of him. The burial of the rats is
quick ! "

The commissary stooped and looked in. Then he
turned to the officer and said calmly :

" We may as well go back. No trace here now ;
nothing to prove that man was the one wounded by
your soldiers' bullets ! Probably they murdered him
to cover up the trace. See ! " again he stooped and
placed his hands on the skeleton. " The rats work
quickly and they are many. These bones are
warm ! "

I shuddered, and so did many more of those around
me.

" Form ! " said the officer, and so in marching order,
with the lanterns swinging in front and the manacled
veterans in the midst, with steady tramp we took our-
selves out of the dust-heaps and turned backward to
the fortress of Bicetre.

My year of probation has long since ended, and
Alice is my wife. But when I look back upon that

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS 155

trying twelvemonth one of the most vivid incidents
that memory recalls is that associated with my visit to
the City of Dust.

A DREAM OF RED HANDS

The first opinion given to me regarding Jacob
Settle was a simple descriptive statement, " He's
a down-in-the-mouth chap": but I found that it
embodied the thoughts and ideas of all his fellow-
workmen. There was in the phrase a certain easy
tolerance, an absence of positive feeling of any kind,
rather than any complete opinion, which marked pretty
accurately the man's place in public esteem. Still,
there was some dissimilarity between this and his
appearance which unconsciously set me thinking, and
by degrees, as I saw more of the place and the work-
men, I came to have a special interest in him. He
was, I found, for ever doing kindnesses, not involving
money expenses beyond his humble means, but in
the manifold ways of forethought and forbearance and
self- repression which are of the truer charities of
life. Women and children trusted him implicitly,
though, strangely enough, he rather shunned them,
except when anyone was sick, and then he made his
appearance to help if he could, timidly and awkwardly.
He led a very solitary life, keeping house by himself
in a tiny cottage, or rather hut, of one room, far on
the edge of the moorland. His existence seemed so
sad and solitary that I wished to cheer it up, and
for the purpose took the occasion when we had both

i58 A DREAM OF RED HANDS

been sitting up with a child, injured by me through
accident, to offer to 3end him books. He gladly ac-
cepted, and as we parted in the grey of the dawn I
felt that something of mutual confidence had been
established between us.

The books were always most carefully and punctually
returned, and in time Jacob Settle and I became quite
friends. Once or twice as I crossed the moorland on
Sundays I looked in on him ; but on such occasions
he was shy and ill at ease so that I felt diffident
about calling to see him. He would never under any
circumstances come into my own lodgings.

One Sunday afternoon, I was coming back from a
long walk beyond the moor, and as I passed Settle's
cottage stopped at the door to say " How do you do ? "
to him. As the door was shut, I thought that he was
out, and merely knocked for form's sake, or through
habit, not expecting to get any answer. To my sur-
prise, I heard a feeble voice from within, though what
was said I could not hear. I entered at once, and
found Jacob lying half-dressed upon his bed. He was
as pale as death, and the sweat was simply rolling off
his face. His hands were unconsciously gripping the
bed-clothes as a drowning man holds on to whatever
he may grasp. As I came in he half arose, with a wild,
hunted look in his eyes, which were wide open and
staring, as though something of horror had come
before him ; but when he recognised me he sank back
on the couch with a smothered sob of relief and closed
his eyes. I stood by him for a while, quite a minute
or two, while he gasped. Then he opened his eyes
and looked at me, but with such a despairing, woeful
expression that, as I am a living man, I would have

A DREAM OF RED HANDS 159

rather seen that frozen look of horror. I sat down beside
him and asked after his health. For a while he would
not answer me except to say that he was not ill ; but
then, after scrutinising me closely, he half arose on his
elbow and said —

" I thank you kindly, sir, but I'm simply telling
you the truth. I am not ill, as men call it, though
God knows whether there be not worse sicknesses than
doctors know of. I'll tell you, as you are so kind, but
I trust that you won't even mention such a thing to a
living soul, for it might work me more and greater
woe. I am suffering from a bad dream."

" A bad dream ! " I said; hoping to cheer him ;
" but dreams pass away with the light — even with
waking." There I stopped, for before he spoke I saw
the answer in his desolate look round the little place.

" No ! no ! that's all well for people that live in
comfort and with those they love around them. It is
a thousand times worse for those who live alone and
have to do so. What cheer is there for me, waking
here in the silence of the night, with the wide moor
around me full of voices and full of faces that make
my waking a worse dream than my sleep ? Ah,
young sir, you have no past that can send its legions
to people the darkness and the empty space, and I
pray the good God that you may never have ! " As
he spoke, there was such an almost irresistible gravity
of conviction in his manner that I abandoned my
remonstrance about his solitary life. I felt that I was
in the presence of some secret influence which I could
not fathom. To my relief, for I knew not what to say,
he went on —

" Two nights past have I dreamed it. It was hard

160 A DREAM OF RED HANDS

enough the first night, but I came through it. Last
night the expectation was in itself almost worse than
the dream — until the dream came, and then it swept
away every remembrance of lesser pain. I stayed
awake till just before the dawn, and then it came
again, and ever since I have been in such an agony
as I am sure the dying feel, and with it all the dread
of to-night." Before he had got to the end of the
sentence my mind was made up, and I felt that I
could speak to him more cheerfully.

" Try and get to sleep early to-night — in fact,
before the ^evening has passed away. The sleep will
refresh you, and I promise you there will not be any
bad dreams after to-night." He shook his head hope-
lessly, so I sat a little longer and then left him.

When I got home I made my arrangements for the
night, for I had made up my mind to share Jacob
Settle's lonely vigil in his cottage on the moor. I
judged that if he got to sleep before sunset he would
wake well before midnight, and so, just as the bells
of the city were striking eleven, I stood opposite his
door armed with a bag, in which were my supper, an
extra large flask, a couple of candles, and a book.
The moonlight was bright, and flooded the whole moor,
till it was almost as light as day; but ever and anon
black clouds drove across the sky, and made a dark-
ness which by comparison seemed almost tangible. I
opened the door softly, and entered without waking
Jacob, who lay asleep with his white face upward. He
was still, and again bathed in sweat. I tried to imagine
what visions were passing before those closed eyes
which could bring with them the misery and woe
which were stamped on the face, but fancy failed me,

A DREAM OF RED HANDS 161

and I waited for the awakening. It came suddenly,
and in a fashion which touched me to the quick, for
the hollow groan that broke from the man's white lips
as he half arose and sank back was manifestly the
realisation or completion of some train of thought
which had gone before.

" If this be dreaming," said I to myself, " then it
must be based on some very terrible reality. What can
have been that unhappy fact that he spoke of ? "

While I thus spoke, he realised that I was with
him. It struck me as strange that he had no period
of that doubt as to whether dream or reality surrounded
him which commonly marks an expected environment
of waking men. With a positive cry of joy, he
seized my hand and held it in his two wet,
trembling hands, as a frightened child clings on to
someone whom it loves. I tried to soothe him—

" There, there ! it is all right. I have come to stay
with you to-night, and together we will try to fight
this evil dream." He let go my hand suddenly, and
sank back on his bed and covered his eyes with his
hands.

" Fight it ?— the evil dream ! Ah ! no, sir no ! No
mortal power can fight that dream, for it comes from
God — and is burned in here ; " and he beat upon his
forehead. Then he went on—

" It is the same dream, ever the same, and yet it
grows in its power to torture me every time it comes."

" What is the dream ? " I asked, thinking that the
speaking of it might give him some relief, but he
shrank away from me, and after a long pause said —

"No, I had better not tell it. It may not come

i6z A DREAM OF RED HANDS

There was maifestly something to conceal from
me — something that lay behind the dream, so I
answered —

"All right. I hope you have seen the last of it.
But if it should come again, you will tell me, will you
not? I ask, not out of curiosity, but because I think
it may relieve you to speak." He answered with what
1 thought was almost an undue amount of solemnity — ■

" If it comes again, I shall tell you all."

Then I tried to get his mind away from the subject
to more mundane things, so I produced supper, and
made him share it with me, including the contents
of the flask. After a little he braced up, and when
I lit my cigar, having given him another, we smoked
a full hour, and talked of many things. Little by
little the comfort of his body stole over his mind, and
I could see sleep laying her gentle hands on his eye-
lids. He felt it, too, and told me that now he felt
all right, and I-mlght safely leave him ; but I told him
that, right or wrong, I was going to see in the day-
light. So I Ht my other candle, and began to read as
he fell asleep.

By degrees I got interested in my book, so interested
that presently I was startled by its dropping out of
my hands. I looked and sawlthat Jacob was still asleep,
and I was rejoiced to see that there was on his face a
look of unwonted happiness, while his lips seemed to
move with unspoken words. Then I turned to my
work again, and again woke, but this time to feel
chilled to my very marrow by hearing the voice from
the bed beside me —

" Not with those red hands ! Never ! never ! " On
looking at him, I found that he was still asleep. He

A DREAM OF RED HANDS 163

woke, however, in an instant, and did not seem

surprised to see me ; there was again that strange
apathy as to his surroundings. Then I said :

" Settle, tell me your dream. You may speak freely,
for I shall hold your confidence sacred. While we
both live I shall never mention what you may choose
to tell me."

" I said I would ; but I had better tell you first what
goes before the dream, that you may understand. I
was a schoolmaster when I was a very young man j it
was only a parish school in a little village in the
West Country. No need to mention any names.
Better not. I was engaged to be married to a young
girl whom I loved and almost reverenced. It was the
old story. While we were waiting for the time when
we could afford to set up house together, another man
came along. He was nearly as young as I was, and
handsome, and a gentleman, with all a gentleman's
attractive ways for a woman of our class. He would
go fishing, and she would meet him while I was at
my work in school. I reasoned with her and implored
her to give him up. I offered to get married at once
and go away and begin the world in a strange country ;
but she would not listen to anything I could say, and
I could see that she was infatuated with him. Then
I took it on myself to meet the man and ask him to
deal well with the girl, for I thought he might mean
honestly by her, so that there might be no talk or
chance of talk on the part of others. I went where I
should meet him with none by, and we met ! " Here
Jacob Settle had to pause, for something seemed to
rise in his throat, and he almost gasped for breath.
Then he went on —

1 64 A DREAM OF RED HANDS

"Sir, as God is above us, there was no selfish
thought in my heart that day, I loved my pretty
Mabel too well to be content with a part of her love,
and I had thought of my own unhappiness too often
not to have come to realise that, whatever might come
to her, my hope was gone. He was insolent to me —
you, sir, who are a gentleman, cannot know, perhaps,
how galling can be the insolence of one who is above
you in station — but I bore with that. I implored him
to deal well with the girl, for what might be only a
pastime of an idle hour with him might be the
breaking of her heart. For I never had a thought
of her truth, or that the worst of harm could come to
her — it was only the unhappiness to her heart I feared.
But when I asked him when he intended to marry
her his laughter galled me so that I lost my temper
and told him that I would not stand by and see her
life made unhappy. Then he grew angry too, and in
his anger said such cruel things of her that then and
there I swore he should not live to do her harm.
God knows how it came about, for in such moments
of passion it is hard to remember the steps from a
word to a blow, but I found myself standing over his
dead body, with my hands crimson with the blood
that welled from his torn throat. We were alone and
he was a stranger, with none of his kin to seek for him
and murder does not always out — not all at once.
His bones may be whitening still, for all I know, in
the pool of the river where I left him. No one
suspected his absence, or why it was, except my poor
Mabel, and she dared not speak. But it was all in
vain, for when I came back again after an absence of
months— for I could not live in the place— I learned

A DREAM OF RED HANDS 165

that her shame had come and that she had died in it.
Hitherto I had been borne up by the thought that
my ill deed had saved her future, but now, when I
learned that I had been too late, and that my poor
love was smirched with that man's sin, I fled away
with the sense of my useless guilt upon me more
heavily than I could bear. Ah! sir, you that have
not done such a sin don't know what it is to carry it
with you. You may think that custom makes it easy
to you, but it is not so. It grows and grows with
every hour, till it becomes intolerable, and with it
growing, too, the feeling that you must for ever stand
outside Heaven. You don't know what that means,
and I pray God that you never may. Ordinary men,
to whom all things are possible, don't often, if ever,
think of Heaven. It is a name, and nothing more,
and they are content to wait and let things be , but
to those who are doomed to be shut out for ever you
cannot think what it means, you cannot guess or
measure the terrible endless longing to see the gates
opened, and to be able to join the white figures
within.

"And this brings me to my dream. It seemed
that the portal was before me, with great gates of
massive steel with bars of the thickness of a mast,
rising to the very clouds, and so close that between
them was just a glimpse of a crystal grotto, on whose
shining walls were figured many white-clad forms
with faces radiant with joy. When I stood before the
gate my heart and my soul were so full of rapture
and longing that I forgot. And there stood at the
gate two mighty angels with sweeping wings, and,
oh ! so stern of countenance, They held each in one

i66 A DREAM OF RED HANDS

hand a flaming sword, and In the other the latchet,
which moved to and fro at their lightest touch.
Nearer were figures all draped in black, with heads
covered so that only the eyes were seen, and they
handed to each who came white garments such as the
angels wear. A low murmur came that told that all
should put on their own robes, and without soil, or
the angels would not pass them in, but would smite
them down with the flaming swords. I was eager to
don my own garment, and hurriedly threw it over me
and stepped swiftly to the gate; but it moved not,
and the angels, loosing the latchet, pointed to my
dress, I looked down, and was aghast, for the whole
robe was smeared with blood. My hands were red ;
they glittered with the blood that dripped from them
as on that day by the river bank. And then the
angels raised their flaming swords to smite me down,
and the horror was complete — I awoke. Again, and
again, and again, that awful dream comes to me. I
never learn from the experience, I never remember,
but at the beginning the hope is ever there to make
the end more appalling ; and I know that the dream
does not come out of the common darkness where the
dreams abide, but that it is sent from God as a
punishment ! Never, never shall I be able to pass
the gate, for the soil on the angel garments must ever
come from these bloody hands ! "

I listened as in a spell as Jacob Settle spoke.
There was something so far away in the tone of his
voice — something so dreamy and mystic in the eyes
that looked as if through me at some spirit beyond —
something so lofty in his very diction and in such
marked contrast to his workworn clothes and his poor

A DREAM OF RED HANDS 167

surroundings that I wondered if the whole thing were
not a dream.

We were both silent for a long time. I kept look-
ing at the man before me in growing wonderment.
Now that his confession had been made, his soul,
which had been crushed to the very earth, seemed to
leap back again to uprightness with some resilient
force. I suppose I ought to have been horrified with
his story, but, strange to say, I was not. It certainly
is not pleasant to be made the recipient of the con-
fidence of a murderer, but this poor fellow seemed to
have had, not only so much provocation, but so much
self-denying purpose in his deed of blood that I did
not feel called upon to pass judgment upon him. My
purpose was to comfort, so I spoke out with what
calmness I could, for my heart was beating fast and
heavily —

"You need not despair, Jacob Settle. God is very
good, and his mercy is great. Live on and work on
in the hope that some day you may feel that you
have atoned for the past." Here I paused, for I
could see that sleep, natural sleep this time, was
creeping upon him. "Go to sleep," I said; "I shall
watch with you here, and we shall have no more evil
dreams to-night."

He made an effort to pull himself together, and
answered —

" I don't know how to thank you for your goodness
to me this night, but I think you had best leave me
now. I'll try and sleep this out ; I feel a weight
off my mind since I have told you all. If there's any-
thing of the man left in me, I must try and fight out
life alone."

i68 A DREAM OF RED HANDS

" I'll go to-night, as you wish it," I said ; "but take
my advice, and do not live in such a solitary way.
Go among men and women ; live among them. Share
their joys and sorrows, and it will help you to forget.
This solitude will make you melancholy mad."

" I will ! " he answered, half unconsciously, for sleep
was overmastering him.

I turned to go, and he looked after me. When I
had touched the latch I dropped it, and, coming back
to the bed, held out my hand. He grasped it with
both his as he rose to a sitting posture, and I said my
good-night, trying to cheer him —

" Heart, man, heart ! There is work in the world
for you to do, Jacob Settle. You can wear those
white robes yet and pass through that gate of steel ! "

Then I left him.

A week after I found his cottage deserted, and on
asking at the works was told that he had "gone north,"
no one exactly knew whither.

Two years afterwards, I was staying for a few days
with my friend Dr. Munro in Glasgow. He was a
busy man, and could not spare much time for going
about with me, so I spent my days in excursions to
the Trossachs and Loch Katrine and down the Clyde.
On the second last evening of my stay I came back
somewhat later than I had arranged, but found that
my host was late too. The maid told me that he had
been sent for to the hospital — a case of accident at the
gas-works, and the dinner was postponed an hour ; so
telling her I would stroll down to find her master and
walk back with him, I went out. At the hospital I
found him washing his hands preparatory to starting
for home. Casually, I asked him what his case was.

A DREAM OF RED HANDS 169

" Oh, the usual thing ! A rotten rope and men's
lives of no account. Two men were working in a
gasometer, when the rope that held their scaffolding
broke. It must have occurred just before the dinner
hour, for no one noticed their absence till the men
had returned. There was about seven feet of water
in the gasometer, so they had a hard fight for it, poor
fellows. However, one of them was alive, just alive,
but we have had a hard job to pul! him through. It
seems that he owes his life to his mate, for I have
never heard of greater heroism. They swam together
while their strength lasted, but at the end they were
so done up that even the lights above, and the men
slung with ropes, coming down to help them, could
not keep them up. But one of them stood on the
bottom and held up his comrade over his head, and
those few breaths made all the difference between life
and death. They were a shocking sight when they
were taken out, for that water is like a purple dye
with the gas and the tar. The man upstairs looked
as if he had been washed in blood. Ugh ! "

" And the other ? "

" Oh, he's worse still. But he must have been a
very noble fellow. That struggle under the water
must have been fearful ; one can see that by the way
the blood has been drawn from the extremities. It
makes the idea of the Stigmata possible to look at
him. Resolution like this could, you would think, do
anything in the world. Ay ! it might almost unbar
the gates of Heaven. Look here, old man, it is not a
. very pleasant sight, especially just before dinner, but
you are a writer, and this is an odd case. Here is
something you would not like to miss, for in all

i7o A DREAM OF RED HANDS

human probability you will never see anything like it
again." While he was speaking he had brought me
into the mortuary of the hospital,

On the bier lay a body covered with a white sheet,
which was wrapped close round it.

" Looks like a chrysalis, don't it ? I say, Jack, if
there be anything in the old myth that a soul is
typified by a butterfly, well, then the one that this
chrysalis sent forth was a very noble specimen and
took all the sunlight on its wings. See here ! " He
uncovered the face. Horrible, indeed, it looked, as
though stained with blood. But I knew him at once,
Jacob Settle! My friend pulled the winding sheet
further down.

The hands were crossed on the purple breast as
they had been reverently placed by some tender-
hearted person. As I saw them, my heart throbbed
with a great exultation, for the memory of his harrow-
ing dream rushed across my mind. There was no
stain now on those poor, brave hands, for they were
blanched white as snow.

And somehow as I looked I felt that the evil dream
was all over. That noble soul had won a way
through the gate at last. The white robe had now no
stain from the hands that had put it on.

CROOKEN SANDS

Mr. Arthur Fernlee Markam, who took what
was known as the Red House above the Mains of
Crooken, was a London merchant, and being essentially
a cockney, thought it necessary when he went for the
summer holidays to Scotland. to provide an entire
rig-out as a Highland chieftain, as manifested in
chromolithographs and on the music-hall stage. He
had once seen in the Empire the Great Prince — -
"The Bounder King" — bring down the house by
appearing as " The MacSIogan of that Ilk," and
singing the celebrated Scotch song. " There's naething
like haggis to mak a mon dry ! " and he had ever
since preserved in his mind a faithful image of the
picturesque and warlike appearance which he pre-
sented. Indeed, if the true inwardness of Mr,
Markam's mind on the subject of his selection of
Aberdeenshire as a summer resort were known, it
would be found that in the foreground of the holiday
locality which his fancy painted stalked the many-
hued figure of the MacSIogan of that Ilk. However,
be this as it may, a very kind fortune — certainly so
far as external beauty was concerned — led him to the
choice of Crooken Bay. It is a lovely spot,
between Aberdeen and Peterhead, just under the
rock-bound headland whence the long, dangerous
reefs known as The Spurs run out into the North Sea.

i7a CROOKEN SANDS

1 Between this and the " Mains of Crooken " — a village
sheltered by the northern cliffs — lies the deep bay,
backed with a multitude of bent-grown dunes where the
rabbits are to be found in thousands. Thus at either
end of the bay is a rocky promontory, and when the
dawn or the sunset falls on the rocks of red syenite
the effect is very lovely. The bay itself is floored
with level sand and the tide runs far out, leaving a
smooth waste of hard sand on which are dotted here
and there the stake nets and bag nets of the salmon
fishers. At one end of the bay there is a little group or
cluster of rocks whose heads are raised something
above high water, except when in rough weather the
waves come over them green. At low tide they are
exposed down to sand level ; and here is perhaps the
only little bit of dangerous sand on this part of the
the eastern coast. Between the rocks, which are
apart about some fifty feet, is a small quicksand,
which, like the Goodwins, is dangerous only with the
incoming tide. It extends outwards till it is lost in the
sea, and inwards till it fades away in the hard sand of
the upper beach. On the slope of the hill which rises
beyond the dunes, midway between the Spurs and
the Port of Crooken, is the Red House. It rises from
the midst of a clump of fir-trees which protect it on
three sides, leaving the whole sea front open. A trim,
old-fashioned garden stretches down to the roadway,
on crossing which a grassy path, which can be used
for light vehicles, threads a way to the shore, winding
amongst the sand hills.

When the Markam family arrived at the Red
House after their thirty-six hours of pitching on the
Aberdeen steamer Ban Righ from Blackwall, with

CROOKEN SANDS 173

the subsequent train to Yellon and drive of a dozer,
miles, they ali agreed that they had never seen a
more delightful spot. The general satisfaction was
more marked as at that very time none of the family
were, for several reasons, inclined to find favourable
anything or any place over the Scottish border.
Though the family was a large one, the prosperity of
the business allowed them all sorts of personal luxuries,
amongst which was a wide latitude in the way of
dress. The frequency of the Markam girls' new frocks
was a source of envy to their bosom friends and of joy
to themselves.

Arthur Fernlee Markam had not taken his family
into his confidence regarding his new costume. He
was not quite certain that he should be free from
ridicule, or at least from sarcasm, and as he was
sensitive on the subject, he thought it better to be
actually in the suitable environment before he allowed
the full splendour to burst on them. He had taken
some pains to insure the completeness of the Highland
costume. For the purpose he had paid many visits
to " The Scotch All-wool Tartan clothing Mart "
which had been lately established in Copthall-court
by the Messrs. MacCallum More and Roderick
MacDhu. He had anxious consultations with the
head of the firm — MacCullum as he called himself,
resenting any such additions as " Mr." or " Esquire."
The known stock of buckles, buttons, straps, brooches
and ornaments of all kinds were examined in critical
detail ; and at last an eagle's feather of sufficiently
magnificent proportions was discovered, and the
equipment was complete. It was only when he saw
the finished costume, with the vivid hues of the tartan

174 CROOKEN SANDS

seemingly modified into comparative sobriety by the
multitude of silver fittings, the cairngorm brooches,
the philibeg, dirk and sporran that he was fully and
absolutely satisfied with his choice. At first he had
thought of the Royal Stuart dress tartan, but
abandoned it on the MacCallum pointing out that
if he should happen to be in the neighbourhood of
Balmoral it might lead to complications. The
MacCullum, who, by the way, spoke with a remark-
able cockney accent, suggested other plaids in turn ;
but now that the other question of accuracy had been
raised, Mr. Markam foresaw difficulties if he should
by chance find himself in the locality of the clan
whose colours he had usurped. The MacCallum at
last undertook to have, at Markam's expense, a
special pattern woven which would not be exactly
the same as any existing tartan, though partaking
of the characteristics of many. It was based on the
Royal Stuart, but contained suggestions as to
simplicity of pattern from the Macalister and Ogilvie
clans, and as to neutrality of colour from the clans
of Buchanan, Macbeth, Chief of Macintosh and
Macleod. When the specimen had been shown to
Markam he had feared somewhat lest it should
strike the eye of his domestic circle as gaudy; but as
Roderick MacDhu fell into perfect ecstasies over its
beauty he did not make any objection to the com-
pletion of the piece. He thought, and wisely, that
if a genuine Scotchman like MacDhu liked it, it must
be right — especially as the junior partner was a man
very much of his own build and appearance. When
the MacCallum was receiving his cheque — which, by
the way, was a pretty stiff one — he remarked :

CROOKEN SANDS 175

" I've taken the liberty of having some more of the
stuff woven in case you or any of your friends should
want it." Markam was gratified, and told him that
he should be only too happy if the beautiful stuff
which they had originated between them should
become a favourite, as he had no doubt it would in
time. He might make and sell as much as he would.

Markam tried the dress on in his office one
evening after the clerks had all gone home. He was
pleased, though a little frightened, at the result. The
MacCullum had done his work thoroughly, and there
was nothing omitted that could add to the martial
dignity of the wearer.

" I shall not, of course, take the claymore and the
pistols with me on ordinary occasions," said Markam
to himself as he began to undress. He determined
that he would wear the dress for the first time on
landing in Scotland, and accordingly on the morning
when the Ban Righ was hanging off the Girdle Ness
lighthouse, waiting for the tide to enter the port of
Aberdeen, he emerged from his cabin in all the gaudy
splendour of his new costume. The first comment he
heard was from one of his own sons, who did not
recognise him at first.

" Here's a guy ! Great Scott ! It's the governor ! "
And the boy fled forthwith and tried to bury his
laughter under a cushion in the saloon. Markam was
a good sailor and had not suffered from the pitching
of the boat, so that his naturally rubicund face was
even more rosy by the conscious blush which suffused
his cheeks when he had found himself at once the
cynosure of all eyes. He could have wished that he
had not been so bold, for he knew from the cold that

i76 CROOKEN SANDS

there was a big bare spot under one side of his
jauntily worn Glengarry cap. However, he faced the
group of strangers boldly. He was not, outwardly,
upset even when some of their commen' reached his
ears.

"He's off his bloomin* chump," said a cockney in a
suit of exaggerated plaid.

"There's flies on him," said a tall thin Yankee,
pale with sea-sickness, who was on his way to take up
his residence for a time as close as he could get to the
gates of Balmoral.

" Happy thought ! Let us fill our mulls ; now's
the chance ! " said a young Oxford man on his way
home to Inverness. But presently Mr. Markam
heard the voice of his eldest daughter.

" Where is he ? Where is he ? " and she came
tearing along the deck with her hat blowing behind
her. Her face showed signs of agitation, for her
mother had just been telling her of her father's
condition ; but when she saw him she instantly burst
into laughter so violent that it ended in a fit of
hysterics. Something of the same kind happened
to each of the other children. When they had all
had their turn Mr. Markam went to his cabin and
sent his wife's maid to tell each member of the family
that he wanted to see them at once. They all made
their appearance, suppressing their feelings as well as
they could. He said to them very quietly :

" My dears, don't I provide you all with ample
allowances ! "

" Yes, father ! " they all answered gravely, " no one
could be more generous ! "

" Don't I let you dress as you please ? "

CROOKEN SANDS 177

" Yes, father ! "—this a little sheepishly.

"Then, my dears, don't you think it would be
nicer and kinder of you not to try and make me feel
uncomfortable, even if I do assume a dress which is
ridiculous in your eyes, though quite common enough
in the country where we are about to sojourn." There
was no answer except that which appeared in their
hanging heads. He was a good father and they all
knew it. He was quite satisfied and went on :

" There, now, run away and enjoy yourselves ! We
shan't have another word about it." Then he went
on deck again and stood bravely the fire of ridicule
which he recognised around him, though nothing more
was said within his hearing.

The astonishment and the amusement which his
get-up occasioned on the Ban Righ was, however,
nothing to that which it created in Aberdeen. The
boys and loafers, and women with babies, who waited
at the landing shed, followed en masse as the Markam
party took their way to the railway station ; even the
porters with their old-fashioned knots and their new-
fashioned barrows, who await the traveller at the
foot of the gang-plank, followed in wondering delight.
Fortunately the Peterhead train was just about to
start, so that the martyrdom was not unnecessarily
prolonged. In the carriage the glorious Highland
costume was unseen, and as there were but few
persons at the station at Yellon, all went well there.
When, however, the carriage drew near the Mains
of Crooken and the fisher folk had run to their doors
to see who it was that was passing, the excitement
exceeded all bounds. The children with one impulse
waved their bonnets and ran shouting behind the

i78 CROOICEN SANDS

carriage ; the men forsook their nets and their baiting
and followed ; the women clutched their babies and
followed also. The horses were tired after their long
journey to Yellon and back, and the hill was steep,
so that there was ample time for the crowd to gather
and even to pass on ahead.

Mrs, Markam and the elder girls would have liked
to make some protest or to do something to relieve their
feelings of chagrin at the ridicule which they saw on
all faces, but there was a look of fixed determination
on the face of the seeming Highlander which awed
them a little, and they were silent. It might have
been that the eagle's feather, even when rising above
the bald head, the cairngorm brooch even on the fat
shoulder, and the claymore, dirk and pistols, even
when belted round the extensive paunch and pro-
truding from the stocking on the sturdy calf, fulfilled
their existence as symbols of martial and terrifying
import ! When the party arrived at the gate of the
Red House there awaited them a crowd of Crooken
inhabitants, hatless and respectfully silent; the
remainder of the population was painfully toiling up
the hill. The silence was broken by only one sound,
that of a man with a deep voice.

" Man ! but he's forgotten the pipes ! "

The servants had arrived some days before, and
all things were in readiness. In the glow consequent
on a good lunch after a hard journey all the disagree-
ables of travel and all the chagrin consequent on the
adoption of the obnoxious costume were forgotten.

That afternoon Markam, still clad in full array,
walked through the Mains of Crooken. He was all
alone, for, strange to say, his wife and both daughters

CROOKEN SANDS 179

had sick headaches, and were, as he was told, lying
down to rest after the fatigue of the journey. His
eldest son, who claimed to be a young man, had
gone out by himself to explore the surroundings of
the place, and one of the boys could not be found.
The other boy, on being told that his father had sent
for him to come for a walk, had managed — by
accident, of course — to fall into a water butt, and had
to be dried and rigged out afresh. His clothes not
having been as yet unpacked this was of course
impossible without delay.

Mr. Markam was not quite satisfied with his walk.
He could not meet any of his neighbours. It was not
that there were not enough people about, for every
house and cottage seemed to be full ; but the people
when in the open were either in their doorways some
distance behind him, or on the roadway a long
distance in front. As he passed he could see the tops
of heads and the whites of eyes in the windows or
round the corners of doors. The only interview which
he had was anything but a pleasant one. This was
with an odd sort of old man who was hardly ever
heard to speak except to join in the " Amens " in the
meeting-house._ His sole occupation seemed to be to
wait a*- the window of the post-office from eight
o'clor in the morning till the arrival of the mail at
one, ,vhen he carried the letter-bag to a neighbouring
bavonial castle. The remainder of his day was spent
on a seat in a draughty part of the port, where the
offal of the fish, the refuse of the bait, and the house
rubbish was thrown, and where the ducks were
accustomed to hold high revel.

When Saft Tammie beheld him coming he raised

180 CROOKEN SANDS

his eyes, which were generally fixed on the nothing
which lay on the roadway opposite his seat, and,
seeming dazzled as if by a burst of sunshine, rubbed
them and shaded them with his hand. Then he
started up and raised his hand aloft in a denunciatory
manner as be spoke : —

" ' Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher. All is
vanity.' Mon, be warned in time ! ' Behold the
lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin,
yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one
of these.' Mon ! mon ! Thy vanity is as the quick-
sand which swallows up all which comes within its
spell. Beware vanity ! Beware the quicksand,
which yawneth for thee, and which will swallow
thee up ! See thyself ! Learn thine own vanity !
Meet thyself face to face, and then in that moment
thou shalt learn the fatal force of thy vanity. Learn
it, know it, and repent ere the quicksand swallow
thee ! " Then without another word he went back to
his seat and sat there immovable and expression-
less as before.

Markam could not but feel a little upset by this
tirade. Only that it was spoken by a seeming mad-
man, he would have put it down to some eccentric
exhibition of Scottish humour or impudence ; but the
gravity of the message — for it seemed nothing else —
made such a reading impossible. He was, however,
determined not to give in to ridicule, and although he
had not as yet seen anything in Scotland to remind
him even of a kilt, he determined to wear his High-
land dress. When he returned home, in less than
half-an-hour, he found that every member of the
family was, despite the headaches, out taking a walk.

CROOKEN SANDS 181

He took the opportunity afforded by their absence of
locking himself in his dressing-room, took off the
Highland dress, and, putting on a suit of flannels, lit
a cigar and had a snooze. He was awakened by the
noise of the family coming in, and at once donning
his dress made his appearance in the drawing-room
for tea.

He did not go out again that afternoon ; but after
dinner he put on his dress again — he had, of course,
dressed for dinner as usual — and went by himself for
a walk on the sea-shore. He had by this time come
to the conclusion that he .would get by degrees
accustomed to the Highland dress before making it
his ordinary wear. The moon was up and he easily
followed the path through the sand-hills, and shortly
struck the shore. The tide was out and the beach
firm as a rock, so he strolled southwards to nearly the
end of the bay. Here he was attracted by two
isolated rocks some little way out from the edge of
the dunes, so, he strolled towards them. When he
reached the nearest one he climbed it, and, sitting
there elevated some fifteen or twenty feet over the
waste of sand, enjoyed the lovely, peaceful prospect.
The moon was rising behind the headland of Penny-
fold, and its light was just touching the top of the
furthermost rock of the Spurs some three-quarters of
a mile out ; the rest of the rocks were in dark shadow.
As the moon rose over the headland, the rocks of the
Spurs and then the beach by degrees became flooded
with light.

For a good while Mr. Markam sat and looked at
the rising moon and the growing area of light which
followed its rise, Then he turned and faced east-

i82 CROOKEN SANDS

wards, and sat with his chin in his hand looking sea-
wards, and revelling in the peace and beauty and
freedom of the scene. The roar of London — the
darkness and the strife and weariness of London life
— seemed to have passed quite away, and he lived at
the moment a freer and higher life. He looked at the
glistening water as it stole its way over the flat waste
of sand, coming closer and closer insensibly — the tide
had turned. Presently he heard a distant shouting
along the beach very far off.

"The fisherman calling to each other," he said to
himself and looked around. As he did so he got a
horrible shock, for though just then a cloud sailed
across the moon he saw, in spite of the sudden
darkness around him, his own image For an instant,
on the top of the opposite rock he could see the bald
back of the head and the Glengarry cap with the
immense eagle's feather. As he staggered back his
foot slipped, and he began to slide down towards the
sand between the two rocks. He took no concern as
to falling, for the sand was really only a few feet
below him, and his mind was occupied with the
figure or simulacrum of himself, which had already
disappeared. As the easiest way of reaching terra
firtna he prepared to jump the remainder of the
distance. All this had taken but a second, but the
brain works quickly, and even as he gathered himself
for the spring he saw the sand below him lying so
marbly level shake and shiver in an odd way. A
sudden fear overcame him ; his knees failed, and
instead of jumping he slid miserably down the rock,
scratching his bare legs as he went. His feet touched
the sand— went through it like water—and he was

CROOKEN SANDS 183

down below his knees before he realised that he was
in a quicksand. Wildly he grasped at the rock to
keep himself from sinking further, and fortunately
there was a jutting spur or edge which he was able
to grasp instinctively. To this he clung in grim
desperation. He tried to shout, but his breath would
not come, till after a great effort his voice rang out.
Again he shouted, and it seemed as if the sound of
his own voice gave him new courage, for he was able
to hold on to the rock for a longer time than he
thought possible — though he held on only m blind
desperation. He was, however, beginning to find his
grasp weakening, when, joy of joys ! his shout was
answered by a rough voice from just above him.

" God be thankit, I'm nae too late ! " and a fisher-
man with great thigh-boots came hurriedly climbing
over the rock. In an instant he recognised the
gravity of the danger, and with a cheering " Haud
fast, mon ! I'm comin' ! " scrambled down till he
found a firm foothold. Then with one strong hand
holding the rock above, he leaned down, and catching
Markam's wrist, called out to him, " Haud to me,
mon ! Haud to me wi' your ither hond ! "

Then he lent his great strength, and with a steady,
sturdy pull, dragged him out of the hungry quicksand
and placed him safe upon the rock. Hardly giving
him time to draw breath, he pulled and pushed him
— never letting him go for an instant — over the rock
into the firm sand beyond it, and finally deposited
him, still shaking from the magnitude of his danger,
high up on the beach. Then he began to speak :

" Mon ! but I was just in time. If I had no laucht
at yon foolish lads and begun to rin at the first you'd

,84 CROOKEN SANDS

a bin sinkin' doon to the bowels o' the airth be the
noo! Wully Beagrie thocht you was a ghaist, and
Tom MacPhail swore ye was only like a goblin on a
puddick-steel ! ' Na ! ' said I. ' Yon's but the daft
Englishman — the loony that has escapit frae the wax-
warks.' I was thinkin' that bein' strange and silly—
if not a whole-made feel — ye'd no ken the ways o'
the quicksan' ! I shouted till warn ye, and then ran
to drag ye an", if need be. But God be thankit, be ye
fule or only half-daft wi' yer vanity, that I was no that
late ! " and he reverently lifted his cap as he spoke.

Mr. Markam was deeply touched and thankful for
his escape from a horrible death J but the sting of the
charge of vanity thus made once more against him
came through his humility. He was about to reply
angrily, when suddenly a great awe fell upon him as
he remembered the warning words of the half-crazy
letter-carrier : " Meet thyself face to face, and repent
ere the quicksand shall swallow thee ! "

Here, too, he remembered the image of himself that
he had seen and the sudden danger from the deadly
quicksand that had followed. He was silent a full
minute, and then said :

" My good fellow, I owe you my life ! "

The answer came with reverence from the hardy
fisherman, " Na ! Na ! Ye owe that to God ; but,
as for me, I'm only too glad till be the humble
instrument o' His mercy."

" But you will let me thank you," said Mr. Markam,
taking both the great hands of his deliverer in his and
holding them tight. " My heart is too full as yet, and
my nerves are too much shaken to let me say much ;
but, believe me, I am very, very grateful ! " It was

CROOKEN SANDS 185

quite evident that the poor old fellow was deeply
touched, for the tears were running down his cheeks.

The fisherman said, with a rough but true courtesy :

" Ay, sir ! thank me and ye will — if it'll do yer
poor heart good. An' I'm thinking that if it were me
I'd like to be thankful too. But, sir, as for me I need
no thanks. I am glad, so I am ! "

That Arthur Fernlee Markam was really thankful
and grateful was shown practically later on. Within
a week's time there sailed into Port Crooken the
finest fishing smack that had ever been seen in the
harbour of Peterhead. She was fully found with sails
and gear of all kinds, and with nets of the best. Her
master and men went away by the coach, after
having left with the salmon -fisher's wife the papers
which made her over to him.

As Mr. Markam and the salmon-fisher walked
together along the shore the former asked his com-
panion not to mention the fact that he had been in
such imminent danger, for that it would only distress
his dear wife and children. He said that he would
warn them all of the quicksand, and for that purpose
he, then and there, asked questions about it till he
felt that his information on the subject was complete.
Before they parted he asked his companion if he had
happened to see a second figure, dressed like himself,
on the other rock as he had approached to succour
him.

" Na ! Na ! " came the answer, " there is nae sic
another fule in these parts. Nor has there been since
the time o' Jamie Fleeman — him that was fule to the
Laird o' Udny. Why, mon ! sic a heathenish dress
as ye have on till ye has nae been seen in these pairts

1 86 CROOKEN SANDS

within the memory o' mon. An' I'm thinkin' that
sic a dress never was for sittin' on the cauld rock, as
ye done beyont. Mon ! but do ye no fear the
rheumatism or the lumbagy wi' floppin' doon on to
the cauld stanes wi' yer bare flesh 1 I was thinking
that it was daft ye waur when I see ye the mornin'
doon be the port, but it's fule or eediot ye maun be
for the Hke o' thot ! " Mr. Markam did not care to
argue the point, and as they were now close to his
own home he asked the salmon-fisher to have a glass
of whisky — which he did — and they parted for the
night. He took good care to warn all his family of
the quicksand, telling them that he had himself been
in some danger from it.

All that night he never slept. He heard the hours
strike one after the other; but try how he would he
could not get to sleep. Over and over again he went
through the horrible episode of the quicksand, from
the time that Saft Tammie had broken his habitual
silence to preach to him of the sin of vanity and to
warn him. The question kept ever arising in his
mind — "Am I then so vain as to be in the ranks of
the foolish ? " and the answer ever came in the words
of the crazy prophet : " ' Vanity of vanities ! All is
vanity.' Meet thyself face to face, and repent ere the
quicksand shall swallow thee I " Somehow a feeling
of doom began to shape itself in his mind that he
would yet perish in that same quicksand, for there he
had already met himself face to face.

In the gray of the morning he dozed off, but it -was
evident that he continued the subject in his dreams,
for he was fully awakened by his wife, who said :

"Do sleep quietly! That blessed Highland suit

CROOKEN SANDS 1S7

has got on your brain. Don't talk in your sleep, if
you can help it ! " He was somehow conscious of a
glad feeling, as if some terrible weight had been lifted
from him, but he did not know any cause for it. He
asked his wite what he had said in his sleep, and she
answered :

" You said it often enough, goodness knows, for one
to remember it — ' Not face to face ! I saw the eagle
plume over the bald head ! There is hope yet ! Not
face to face ! ' Go to sleep ! Do ! " And then he
did go to sleep, for he seemed to realize that the pro-
phecy of the crazy man had not yet been fulfilled. He
had not met himself face to face — as yet at all events.

He was awakened early by a maid who came to tell
him that there was a fisherman at the door who
wanted to see him. He dressed himself as quickly
as he could — for he was not yet expert with the
Highland dress — and hurried down, not wishing to
keep the salmon-fisher waiting. He was surprised
and not altogether pleased to find that his visitor was
none other than Saft Tammie, who at once opened
fire on him :

" I maun gang awa' t' the post ; but I thocht that I
would waste an hour on ye, and ca' roond just to see
if ye waur still that fou wi' vanity as on the nicht gane
by. An I see that yeVe no learned the lesson. Well I
the time is comin', sure eneucht ! However I have all
the time i' the marnins to my am set', so I'll aye look
roond jist till see how ye gang yer ain gait to the
quicksan', and then to the de'il ! I'm afif till ma wark
the noo ! " And he went straightway, leaving Mr.
Markam considerably vexed, for the maids within
earshot were vainly trying to conceal their giggles.

,88 CROOKEN SANDS

He had fairly made up his mind to wear on that day
ordinary clothes, but the visit of Saft Tammie reversed
his decision. He would show them all that he was
not a coward, and he would go on as he had begun—
come what might. When he came to breakfast in
full martial panoply the children, one and all, held
down their heads and the backs of their necks became
very red indeed. As, however, none of them laughed
—except Titus, the youngest boy, who was seized
with a fit of hysterical choking and was promptly
banished from the room— he could not reprove them,
but began to break his egg with a sternly determined
air. It was unfortunate that as his wife was handing
him a cup of tea one of the buttons of his sleeve
caught in the lace of her morning wrapper, with the
result that the hot tea was spilt over his bare knees.
Not unnaturally, he made use of a swear word, where-
upon his wife, somewhat nettled, spoke out :

" Well, Arthur, if you will make such an idiot of
yourself with that ridiculous costume what else can
you expect? You are not accustomed to it— and
you never will be ! " In answer he began an indignant
speech with : " Madam ! " but he got no further, for
now that the subject was broached, Mrs. Markam
intended to have her say out. It was not a pleasant
say, and, truth to tell, it was not said in a pleasant
manner. A wife's manner seldom is pleasant when
she undertakes to tell what she considers " truths " to
her husband. The result was that Arthur Fernlee
Markam undertook, then and there, that during his
stay in Scotland he would wear no other costume than
the one she abused. Woman-like his wife had the
last word — given in this case with tears :

CROOKEN SANDS 189

** Very well, Arthur ! Of course you will do as you
choose. Make me as ridiculous as you can, and spoil
the poor girls' chances in life. Young men don't seem
to care, as a general rule, for an idiot father-in-law !
But I warn you that your vanity will some day get a
rude shock— if indeed you are not before then in an
asylum or dead !"

It was manifest after a few days that Mr. Markam
would have to take the major part of his out-
door exercise by himself. The girls now and again
took a walk with him, chiefly in the early morning or
late at night, or on a wet day when there would be no
one about ; they professed to be willing to go at all
times, but somehow something always seemed to occur
to prevent it The boys could never be found at all
on such occasions, and as to Mrs. Markam she sternly
refused to go out with him on any consideration so
long as he should continue to make a fool of himself.
On the Sunday he dressed himself in his habitual
broadcloth, for he rightly felt that church was not a
place for angry feelings ; but on Monday morning he
resumed his Highland garb. By this time he would
have given a good deal if he had never thought of the
dress, but his British obstinacy was strong, and he
would not give in. Saft Tammie called at his house
every morning, and, not being able to see him nor to
have any message taken to him, used to call back in
the afternoon when the letter-bag had been delivered
and watched for his going out. On such occasions he
never failed to warn him against his vanity in the
same words which he had used at the first. Before
many days were over Mr. Markam had come to look
upon him as little short of a scourge.

ego CROOKEN SANDS

By the time the week was out the enforced partial
solitude, the constant chagrin, and the never-ending
brooding which was thus engendered, began to make
Mr. Markam quite ill. He was too proud to take any
of his family into his confidence, since they had in his
view treated him very badly. Then he did not sleep
well at night, and when he did sleep he had constantly
bad dreams. Merely to assure himself that his pluck
was not failing him he made it a practice to visit the
quicksand at least once every day; he hardly ever
failed to go there the last thing at night. It was
perhaps this habit that wrought the quicksand with
its terrible experience so perpetually into his dreams.
More and more vivid these became, till on waking at
times he could hardly realise that he had not been
actually in the flesh to visit the fatal spot. He some-
times thought that he might have been walking in his
sleep.

One night his dream was so vivid that when he
awoke he could not believe that it had only been a
dream. He shut his eyes again and again, but each
time the vision, if it was a vision, or the reality, if it
was a reality, would rise before him. The moon was
shining full and yellow over the quicksand as he ap-
proached it ; he could see the expanse of light shaken
and disturbed and full of black shadows as the liquid
sand quivered and trembled and wrinkled and eddied
as was it wonts between its pauses of marble calm.
As he drew close to it another figure came towards it
from the opposite side with equal footsteps. He saw
that it was his own figure, his very self, and in silent
terror, compelled by what force he knew not, he
advanced — charmed as the bird is by the snake,

CROOKEN SANDS 191

mesmerised or hypnotised, — to meet this other self.
As he felt the yielding sand closing over him he
awoke in the agony of death, trembling with fear, and,
strange to say, with the silly man's prophecy seeming
to sound in his ears : " ' Vanity of vanities ! All is
vanity ! ' See thyself and repent ere the quicksand
swallow thee ! "

So convinced was he that this was no dream that
he arose, early as it was, and dressing himself without
disturbing his wife took his way to the shore. His
heart fell when he came across a series of footsteps on
the sands, which he at once recognised as his own.
There was the same wide heel, the same square toe ;
he had no doubt now that he had actually been there,
and half horrified, and half in a state of dreamy stupor,
he followed the footsteps, and found them lost in the
edge of the yielding quicksand. This gave him a
terrible shock, for there were no return steps marked
on the sand, and he felt that there was some dread
mystery which he could not penetrate, and the pene-
tration of which would, he feared, undo him.

In this state of affairs he took two wrong courses.
Firstly he kept his trouble to himself, and, as none of
his family had any clue to it, every innocent word or
expression which they used supplied fuel to the con-
suming fire of his imagination. Secondly he began to
read books professing to bear upon the mysteries of
dreaming and of mental phenomena generally, with
the result that every wild imagination of every crank
or half-crazy philosopher became a living germ of
unrest in the fertilising soil of his disordered brain.
Thus negatively and positively all things began to work
to a common end. Not the least of his disturbing

iga CROOKEN SANDS

causes was Saft Tammie, who had now become at
certain times of the day a fixture at his gate. After a
while, being interested in the previous state of this
individual, he made inquiries regarding his past with
the following result.

Saft Tammie was popularly believed to be the son
of a laird in one of the counties round the Firth of
Forth. He had been partially educated for the
ministry, but for some cause -which no one ever knew
threw up his prospects suddenly, and, going to Peter-
head in its days of whaling prosperity, had there taken
service on a whaler. Here off and on he had remained
for some years, getting gradually more and more
silent in his habits, till finally his shipmates protested
against so taciturn a mate, and he had found service
amongst the fishing smacks of the northern fleet. He
had worked for many years at the fishing with always
the reputation of being " a wee bit daft," till at length
he had gradually settled down at Crooken, where the
laird, doubtless knowing something of his family
history, had given him a job which practically made
him a pensioner. The minister who gave the informa-
tion finished thus : —

" It is a very strange thing, but the man seems to
have some odd kind of gift. Whether it be that
( second sight ' which we Scotch people are so prone
to believe in, or some other occult form of knowledge,
I know not, but nothing of a disastrous tendency ever
occurs in this place but the men with whom he lives
are able to quote after the event some saying of his
which certainly appears to have foretold it He gets
uneasy or excited — wakes up, in fact — when death is
in the air !"

CROOKEN SANDS 193

This did not In any way tend to lessen Mr.
Markam's concern, but on the contrary seemed to
impress the prophecy more deeply on his mind. Of
all the books which he had read on his new subject of
study none interested him so much as a German one
" Die Doppleganger," by Dr. Heinrich von Aschen-
berg, formerly of Bonn. Here he learned for the first
time of cases where men had led a double existence —
each nature being quite apart from the other—the
body being always a reality with one spirit, and a
simulacrum with the other. Needless to say that Mr,
Markam realised this theory as exactly suiting his own
case. The glimpse which he had of his own back the
night of his escape from the quicksand — his own foot-
marks disappearing into the quicksand with no return
steps visible— the prophecy of Saft Tammie about his
meeting himself and perishing in the quicksand — all
lent aid to the conviction that he was in his own
person an instance of the doppleganger. Being then
conscious of a double life he took steps to prove its
existence to his own satisfaction. To this end on one
night before going to bed he wrote his name in chalk
on the soles of his shoes. That night he dreamed of
the quicksand, and of his visiting it — dreamed so
vividly that on waking in the gray of the dawn he
could not believe that he had not been there. Arising,
without disturbing his wife, he sought his shoes.

The chalk signatures were undisturbed ! He dressed
himself and stole out softly. This time the tide was
in, so he crossed the dunes and struck the shore on
the further side of the quicksand. There, oh, horror
of horrors I he saw his own footprints dying into the
abyss !

"3

194 CROOKEN SANDS

He went home a desperately sad man. It seemed
incredible that he, an elderly commercial man, who
had passed a long and uneventful life in the pursuit of
business in the midst of roaring, practical London,
should thus find himself enmeshed in mystery and
horror, and that he should discover that he had two
existences. He could not speak of his trouble even to
his own wife, for well he knew that she would at once
require the fullest particulars of that other life — the
one which she did not know; and that she would at
the start not only imagine but charge him with all
manner of infidelities on the head of it. And so his
brooding grew deeper and deeper still. One evening
— the tide then going out and the moon being at the
full — he was sitting waiting for dinner when the maid
announced that Saft Tammie was making a disturb-
ance outside because he would not be let in to see him.
He was very indignant, but did not like the maid to
think that he had any fear on the subject, and so told
her to bring him in. Tammie entered, walking more
briskly than ever with his head up and a look of
vigorous decision in the eyes that were so generally
cast down. As soon as he entered he said :

" I have come to see ye once again — once again ;
and there ye sit, still just like a cockatoo on a pairch.
Wee!, mon, I forgie ye ! Mind ye that, I forgie ye!"
And without a word more he turned and walked out
of the house, leaving the master in speechless
indignation.

After dinner he determined to pay another visit to
the quicksand — he would not allow even to himself
that he was afraid to go. And so, about nine o'clock,
in full array, he marched to the beach, and passing

CROOKEN SANDS 195

over the sands sat on the skirt of the nearer rock.
The full moon was behind him and its light lit up the
bay so that its fringe of foam, the dark outline of the
headland, and the stakes of the salmon-nets were all
emphasised. In the brilliant yellow glow the lights in
the windows of Port Crooken and in those of the distant
castle of the laird trembled like stars through the sky.
For a long time he sat and drank in the beauty of the
scene, and his soul seemed to feel a peace that it had
not known for many days. All the pettiness and annoy-
ance and silly fears of the past weeks seemed blotted
out, and a new and holy calm took the vacant place.
In this sweet and solemn mood he reviewed his late
action calmly, and felt ashamed of himself for his
vanity and for the obstinacy which had followed it.
And then and there he made up his mind that the
present would be the last time he would wear the
costume which had estranged him from those whom
he loved, and which had caused him so many hours
and days of chagrin, vexation, and pain.

But almost as soon as he arrived at this conclusion
another voice seemed to speak within him and mock-
ingly to ask him if he should ever get the chance to
wear the suit again— that it was too late — he had
chosen his course and must now abide the issue.

" It is not too late," came the quick answer of his
better self; and full of the thought, he rose up to go
home and divest himself of the now hateful costume
right away. He paused for one look at the beautiful
scene. The light lay pale and mellow, softening every
outline of rock and tree and house-top, and deepening
the shadows into velvety-black, and lighting, as with
a pale flame, the incoming tide, that now crept fringe-

196 CROOKEN SANDS

like across the flat waste of sand. Then he left the
rock and stepped out for the shore.

But as he did so a frightful spasm of horror shook
him, and for an instant the blood rushing to his head
shut out all the light of the full moon. Once more
he saw that fatal image of himself moving beyond the
quicksand from the opposite rock to the shore. The
shock was all the greater for the contrast with the spell
of peace which he had just enjoyed ; and, almost
paralysed in every sense, he stood and watched the
fatal vision and the wrinkly, crawling quicksand that
seemed to writhe and yearn for something that lay
between. There could be no mistake this time, for
though the moon behind threw the face into shadow
he could see there the same shaven cheeks as his own,
and the small stubby moustache of a few weeks'
growth. The light shone on the brilliant tartan, and
on the eagle's plume. Even the bald space at one
side of the Glengarry cap glistened, as did the
Cairngorm brooch on the shoulder and the tops of the
silver buttons. As he looked he felt his feet slightly
sinking, for he was still near the edge of the belt ot
quicksand, and he stepped back. As he did so the
other figure stepped forward, so that the space between
them was preserved.

So the two stood facing each other, as though in
some weird fascination ; and in the rushing of the
blood through his brain Markam seemed to hear the
words of the prophecy: "See thyself face to face,
and repent ere the quicksand swallow thee." He did
stand face to face with himself, he had repented — and
now he was sinking in the quicksand ! The warning
and prophecy were coming true

CROOKEN SANDS 197

Above him the seagulls screamed, circling round the
fringe of the incoming tide, and the sound being
entirely mortal recalled him to himself. On the in-
stant he stepped back a few quick steps, for as yet
only his feet were merged in the soft sand. As he did
so the other figure stepped forward, and coming
within the deadly grip of the quicksand began to sink.
It seemed to Markam that he was looking at himself
going down to his doom, and on the instant the anguish
of his soul found vent in a terrible cry. There was at
the same instant a terrible cry from the other figure,
and as Markam threw up his hands the figure did the
same. With horror-struck eyes he saw him sink
deeper into the quicksand ; and then, impelled by what
power he knew not, he advanced again towards the
sand to meet his fate. But as his more forward foot
began to sink he heard again the cries of the seagulls
which seemed to restore his benumbed faculties.
With a mighty effort he drew his foot out of the sand
which seemed to clutch it, leaving his shoe behind,
and then in sheer terror he turned and ran from the
place, never stopping till his breath and strength failed
him, and he sank half swooning on the grassy path

through the sandhills.

* . * * * * *

Arthur Markam made up his mind not to tell his
family of his terrible adventure — until at least such
time as he should be complete master of himself.
Now that the fatal double — his other self — had been
engulfed in the quicksand he felt something like his
old peace of mind.

That night he slept soundly and did not dream at
all ; and in the morning was quite his old self. It

198 CROOKEN SANDS

really seemed as though his newer and worser self had
disappeared for ever ; and strangely enough Saft
Tammie was absent from his post that morning and
never appeared there again, but sat in his old place
watching nothing, as of old, with lack-lustre eye. In
accordance with his resolution he did not wear his
Highland suit again, but one evening tied it up in a
bundle, claymore, dirk and philibeg and all, and
bringing it secretly with him threw it into the quick-
sand. With a feeling of intense pleasure he saw it
sucked below the sand, which closed above it into
marble smootbr.ess. Then he went home and
announced cheerily to his family assembled for
evening prayers.

" Well ! my dears, you will be glad to hear that I
have abandoned my idea of wearing the Highland
dress. I see now what a vain old fool I was and how
ridiculous I made myself! You shall never see it
again ! "

" Where is it, father ? " asked one of the girls,
wishing to say something so that such a self-sacrificing
announcement as her father's should not be passed
in absolute silence. His answer was so sweetly given
that the girl rose from her seat and came and kissed
him. It was :

"In the quicksand, my dear! and I hope that my
worser self is buried there along with it — for ever."
******

The remainder of the summer was passed at Crooken

. with delight by all the family, and on his return to

town Mr. Markam had almost forgotten the whole of

the incident of the quicksand, and all touching on it,

when one day he got a letter from the MacCallum

CROOKEN SANDS 199

More which caused him much thought, though he said
nothing of it to his family, and left it, for certain
reasons, unanswered. It ran as follows : —

" The MacCallum More and Roderick MacDhu.

"The Scotch All-Wool Tartan Clothing Mart,
" Copthall Court, E.C., '

"30th September, 1892.

" Dear Sir, — I trust you will pardon the liberty which I
take in writing to you, but I am desirous of making an in-
quiry, and I am informed that you have been sojourning
during the summer in Aberdeenshire (Scotland, N.B.). My
partner, Mr. Roderick MacDhu— as he appears for business
reasons on our bill heads and in our advertisements, his real
name being Emmanuel Moses Marks of London — went early
last month to Scotland (N.B.) for a tour, but as I have only
once heard from him, shortly after his departure, I am
anxious lest any misfortune may have befallen him. As I
have been unable to obtain any news of him on making all
inquiries in my power, I venture to appeal to you. His
letter was written in deep dejection of spirit, and mentioned
that he feared a judgment had come upon him for wishing
to appear as a Scotchman on Scottish soil, as he had one
moonlight night shortly after his arrival seen his ' wraith.'
He evidently alluded to the fact that before his departure
he had procured for himself a Highland costume similar to
that which we had the honour to supply to you, with which,
as perhaps you will remember, he was much struck. He
may, however, never have worn it, as he was, to my own
knowledge, diffident about putting it on, and even went so
far as to tell me that he would at first only venture to wear
it late at night or very early in the morning, and then only
in remote places, until such time as he should get accustomed
to it. Unfortunately he did not advise me of his route, so

200 CR00KEN SANDS

that I am in complete ignorance of his whereabouts; and I
venture to ask if you may have seen or heard of a Highland
costume similar to your own having been seen anywhere in
the neighbourhood in which I am told you have recently
purchased the estate which you temporarily occupied. I
shall not expect an answer to this letter unless you can give
me some information regarding my friend and partner, so
pray do not trouble yourself to reply unless there be cause.
I am encouraged to think that he may have been in your
neighbourhood as, though his letter is not dated, the envelope
is marked with the postmark of ' Yellon,' which I find is in
Aberdeenshire, and not far from the Mains of Crooken.
"I have the honour to be, dear sir,
" Yours very respectfully,

" Joshua Sheeny Cohen Benjamin.
" (The MacCallum More.)"

The End